35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Could oppression, or anguish, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?
36 Even as it is written, “For your sake we are killed all day long. We were accounted as sheep for the slaughter.”
37 No, in all these things, we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.
38 For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers,
39 nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing will be able to separate us from God’s love which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
TYNDALETyndale New Testament (1534)
35 Who shall seperate vs from the love of god? shall tribulacion? or anguysshe? or persecucion? other honger? other nakednesse? other parell? other swearde?
36 As it is written: For thy sake are we kylled all daye longe and are counted as shepe apoynted to be slayne.
37 Neverthelesse in all these thinges we overcome strongly thorow his helpe that loved vs.
38 Ye and I am sure that nether deeth nether lyfe nether angels nor rule nether power nether thinges present nether thinges to come
39 nether heyth nether loweth nether eny other creature shalbe able to departe vs from the love of God shewed in Christ Iesu oure lorde.
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GNVGeneva Bible (1599)
35 Who shall separate vs from the loue of Christ? shall tribulation or anguish, or persecution, or famine, or nakednesse, or perill, or sworde?
36 As it is written, For thy sake are we killed all day long: we are counted as sheepe for the slaughter.
37 Neuerthelesse, in all these thinges we are more then coquerours through him that loued vs.
38 For I am perswaded that neither death, nor life, nor Angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come,
39 Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature shalbe able to separate vs from the loue of God, which is in Christ Iesus our Lord.
Questions where the Bible appears to say two different things, with the passages on each side set together.
Is it possible to fall from grace?Galatians 5:4, Hebrews 6:4-6, and 2 Peter 2:20-21 all explicitly treat falling away from saving grace as possible — Hebrews even pronounces it irrevocable.
1 Corinthians 15:57(v37)But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
1 John 4:4(v37)You are of God, little children, and have overcome them; because greater is he who is in you than he who is in the world.
John 10:28(vv35, 38)I give eternal life to them. They will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand.
Psalms 44:22(v36)Yes, for your sake we are killed all day long. We are regarded as sheep for the slaughter.
2 Corinthians 2:14(v37)Now thanks be to God, who always leads us in triumph in Christ, and reveals through us the sweet aroma of his knowledge in every place.
Show all 100 cross-references
1 John 5:4-5(v37)For whatever is born of God overcomes the world. This is the victory that has overcome the world: your faith. Who is he who overcomes the…
Psalms 103:17(v35)But Yahweh’s loving kindness is from everlasting to everlasting with those who fear him, his righteousness to children’s children,
John 10:28-30(v39)I give eternal life to them. They will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father who has given them to me is…
Romans 8:35(v39)Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Could oppression, or anguish, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?
John 16:33(vv35, 37)I have told you these things, that in me you may have peace. In the world you have trouble; but cheer up! I have overcome the world.”
Romans 5:3-5(v35)Not only this, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces perseverance; and perseverance, proven character; and…
Romans 14:8(v38)For if we live, we live to the Lord. Or if we die, we die to the Lord. If therefore we live or die, we are the Lord’s.
Revelation 21:7(v37)He who overcomes, I will give him these things. I will be his God, and he will be my son.
2 Corinthians 4:17(v35)For our light affliction, which is for the moment, works for us more and more exceedingly an eternal weight of glory,
2 Timothy 1:12(vv35, 38)For this cause I also suffer these things. Yet I am not ashamed, for I know him whom I have believed, and I am persuaded that he is able to…
Revelation 12:11(v37)They overcame him because of the Lamb’s blood, and because of the word of their testimony. They didn’t love their life, even to death.
Romans 5:8(v39)But God commends his own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
1 Peter 4:12-14(v35)Beloved, don’t be astonished at the fiery trial which has come upon you to test you, as though a strange thing happened to you. But because…
Jude 1:24(v37)Now to him who is able to keep them from stumbling, and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory in great joy,
1 John 4:19(vv37, 39)We love him, because he first loved us.
Isaiah 53:7(v36)He was oppressed, yet when he was afflicted he didn’t open his mouth. As a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and as a sheep that before…
Ephesians 3:18-19(v39)may be strengthened to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and height and depth, and to know Christ’s love which…
Romans 8:39(v35)nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing will be able to separate us from God’s love which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
2 Corinthians 12:9(v37)He has said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Most gladly therefore I will rather glory in…
Galatians 2:20(v37)I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. That life which I now live in the flesh, I live…
2 Timothy 4:16-18(v35)At my first defense, no one came to help me, but all left me. May it not be held against them. But the Lord stood by me and strengthened…
1 Peter 5:8-10(v38)Be sober and self-controlled. Be watchful. Your adversary, the devil, walks around like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.…
John 3:16(v39)For God so loved the world, that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life.
1 John 4:9-10(v39)By this God’s love was revealed in us, that God has sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. In this is…
Matthew 10:28-31(v35)Don’t be afraid of those who kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul. Rather, fear him who is able to destroy both soul and body…
1 Peter 3:22(v38)who is at the right hand of God, having gone into heaven, angels and authorities and powers being made subject to him.
Revelation 17:14(v37)These will war against the Lamb, and the Lamb will overcome them, for he is Lord of lords, and King of kings, and those who are with him…
Ephesians 1:4(v39)even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and without defect before him in love,
Ephesians 5:2(v37)Walk in love, even as Christ also loved us and gave himself up for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling fragrance.
Colossians 1:16(v38)For by him all things were created in the heavens and on the earth, visible things and invisible things, whether thrones or dominions or…
1 Corinthians 4:11(v35)Even to this present hour we hunger, thirst, are naked, are beaten, and have no certain dwelling place.
Romans 8:17(v35)and if children, then heirs: heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with him, that we may also be glorified with him.
1 Corinthians 3:22-23(v38)whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come. All are yours, and you are…
2 Corinthians 6:4-10(v35)but in everything commending ourselves, as servants of God, in great endurance, in afflictions, in hardships, in distresses, in beatings,…
Revelation 1:5(vv35, 37)and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth. To him who loves us, and…
1 Corinthians 4:9(v36)For, I think that God has displayed us, the apostles, last of all, like men sentenced to death. For we are made a spectacle to the world,…
2 Corinthians 4:10-11(v36)always carrying in the body the putting to death of the Lord Jesus, that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. For we who…
Hebrews 12:3-11(v35)For consider him who has endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, that you don’t grow weary, fainting in your souls. You have…
Revelation 7:14-17(v35)I told him, “My lord, you know.” He said to me, “These are those who came out of the great suffering.They washed their robes, and made them…
Jeremiah 31:3(v35)Yahweh appeared of old to me, saying, “Yes, I have loved you with an everlasting love. Therefore I have drawn you with loving kindness.
John 16:27(v39)for the Father himself loves you, because you have loved me, and have believed that I came from God.
John 17:26(v39)I made known to them your name, and will make it known; that the love with which you loved me may be in them, and I in them.”
Acts 8:32(v36)Now the passage of the Scripture which he was reading was this, “He was led as a sheep to the slaughter. As a lamb before his shearer is…
Colossians 2:15(v38)Having stripped the principalities and the powers, he made a show of them openly, triumphing over them in it.
2 Chronicles 20:25-27(v37)When Jehoshaphat and his people came to take their plunder, they found among them in abundance both riches and dead bodies, and precious…
Ephesians 1:21(v38)far above all rule, authority, power, dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age, but also in that which is to come.
Ephesians 6:11-12(v38)Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For our wrestling is not against flesh and…
Colossians 3:3-4(v39)For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, our life, is revealed, then you will also be revealed with him in…
1 Peter 1:5-7(v35)who by the power of God are guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. Wherein you greatly rejoice,…
1 John 4:16(v39)We know and have believed the love which God has for us. God is love, and he who remains in love remains in God, and God remains in him.
Matthew 5:10-12(v35)Blessed are those who have been persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven. “Blessed are you when people…
John 13:1(v35)Now before the feast of the Passover, Jesus, knowing that his time had come that he would depart from this world to the Father, having…
Acts 14:22(v35)strengthening the souls of the disciples, exhorting them to continue in the faith, and that through many afflictions we must enter into…
Acts 20:23-24(v35)except that the Holy Spirit testifies in every city, saying that bonds and afflictions wait for me. But these things don’t count; nor do I…
Romans 4:21(v38)and being fully assured that what he had promised, he was also able to perform.
1 Corinthians 15:54(v37)But when this perishable body will have become imperishable, and this mortal will have put on immortality, then what is written will…
1 Corinthians 15:54-58(v38)But when this perishable body will have become imperishable, and this mortal will have put on immortality, then what is written will…
2 Corinthians 4:13(v38)But having the same spirit of faith, according to that which is written, “I believed, and therefore I spoke.” We also believe, and…
2 Thessalonians 2:13-14(v35)But we are bound to always give thanks to God for you, brothers loved by the Lord, because God chose you from the beginning for salvation…
James 1:2-4(v35)Count it all joy, my brothers, when you fall into various temptations, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. Let…
2 Thessalonians 2:16(vv35, 37)Now our Lord Jesus Christ himself, and God our Father, who loved us and gave us eternal comfort and good hope through grace,
Isaiah 25:8(v37)He has swallowed up death forever! The Lord Yahweh will wipe away tears from off all faces. He will take the reproach of his people away…
Luke 21:12-18(v35)But before all these things, they will lay their hands on you and will persecute you, delivering you up to synagogues and prisons, bringing…
Acts 20:24(v36)But these things don’t count; nor do I hold my life dear to myself, so that I may finish my race with joy, and the ministry which I…
Titus 3:4-7(v39)But when the kindness of God our Savior and his love toward mankind appeared, not by works of righteousness which we did ourselves, but…
Revelation 7:9-10(v37)After these things I looked, and behold, a great multitude, which no man could count, out of every nation and of all tribes, peoples, and…
Jeremiah 11:19(v36)But I was like a gentle lamb that is led to the slaughter. I didn’t know that they had devised plans against me, saying, “Let’s destroy the…
2 Corinthians 5:4-8(v38)For indeed we who are in this tent do groan, being burdened, not that we desire to be unclothed, but that we desire to be clothed, that…
2 Corinthians 11:23-27(v35)Are they servants of Christ? (I speak as one beside himself.) I am more so: in labors more abundantly, in prisons more abundantly, in…
Ephesians 2:4-7(v39)But God, being rich in mercy, for his great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive…
1 John 4:10(v37)In this is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son as the atoning sacrifice for our sins.
Revelation 3:9(v37)Behold, I give some of the synagogue of Satan, of those who say they are Jews, and they are not, but lie—behold, I will make them to come…
Revelation 11:7-12(v37)When they have finished their testimony, the beast that comes up out of the abyss will make war with them, and overcome them, and kill…
Jeremiah 12:3(v36)But you, Yahweh, know me. You see me, and test my heart toward you. Pull them out like sheep for the slaughter, and prepare them for the…
Jeremiah 51:40(v36)“I will bring them down like lambs to the slaughter, like rams with male goats.
John 16:2(v36)They will put you out of the synagogues. Yes, the time comes that whoever kills you will think that he offers service to God.
2 Corinthians 11:14(v38)And no wonder, for even Satan masquerades as an angel of light.
2 Corinthians 12:19(v37)Again, do you think that we are excusing ourselves to you? In the sight of God we speak in Christ. But all things, beloved, are for your…
Philippians 1:20-23(v38)according to my earnest expectation and hope, that I will in no way be disappointed, but with all boldness, as always, now also Christ will…
Hebrews 11:13(v38)These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them and embraced them from afar, and having confessed that they…
Ephesians 5:25-27(v37)Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the assembly, and gave himself up for it; that he might sanctify it, having cleansed…
Exodus 9:16-17(v39)but indeed for this cause I have made you stand: to show you my power, and that my name may be declared throughout all the earth, because…
Isaiah 24:21(v39)It will happen in that day that Yahweh will punish the army of the high ones on high, and the kings of the earth on the earth.
Romans 11:33(v39)Oh the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and the knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past tracing out!
Psalms 64:6(v39)They plot injustice, saying, “We have made a perfect plan!” Surely man’s mind and heart are cunning.
Proverbs 20:5(v39)Counsel in the heart of man is like deep water, but a man of understanding will draw it out.
2 Thessalonians 2:9-12(v39)even he whose coming is according to the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders, and with all deception of wickedness…
Isaiah 10:10-14(v39)As my hand has found the kingdoms of the idols, whose engraved images exceeded those of Jerusalem and of Samaria; shall I not, as I have…
Isaiah 10:33(v39)Behold, the Lord, Yahweh of Armies, will lop the boughs with terror. The tall will be cut down, and the lofty will be brought low.
Daniel 4:11(v39)The tree grew, and was strong, and its height reached to the sky, and its sight to the end of all the earth.
Daniel 5:18-23(v39)“You, king, the Most High God gave Nebuchadnezzar your father the kingdom, and greatness, and glory, and majesty. Because of the greatness…
Matthew 24:24(v39)For there will arise false christs, and false prophets, and they will show great signs and wonders, so as to lead astray, if possible, even…
2 Corinthians 2:11(v39)that no advantage may be gained over us by Satan, for we are not ignorant of his schemes.
2 Corinthians 11:3(v39)But I am afraid that somehow, as the serpent deceived Eve in his craftiness, so your minds might be corrupted from the simplicity that is…
100 distinct cross-references across this passage (115 total citations).
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this passage (23 sources)
Historical commentary, presented as a primary source — not an endorsement.
John Calvin1540 · Public DomainOn vv35–3935. Who shall separate us, etc. The conviction of…
35. Who shall separate us, etc. The conviction of safety is now more widely extended, even to lower things; for he who is persuaded of God’s kindness towards him, is able to stand firm in the heaviest afflictions. These usually harass men in no small degree, and for various reasons, — because they interpret them as tokens of God’s wrath, or think themselves to be forsaken by God, or see no end to them, or neglect to meditate on a better life, or for other similar reasons; but when the mind is purged from such mistakes, it becomes calm, and quietly rests. But the import of the words is, — That whatever happens, we ought to stand firm in this faith, — that God, who once in his love embraced us, never ceases to care for us. For he does not simply say that there is nothing which can tear God away from his love to us; but he means, that the knowledge and lively sense of the love which he testifies to us is so vigorous in our hearts, that it always shines in the darkness of afflictions: for as clouds, though they obscure the clear brightness of the sun, do not yet wholly deprive us of its light; so God, in adversities, sends forth through the darkness the rays of his favor, lest temptations should overwhelm us with despair; nay, our faith, supported by God’s promises as by wings, makes its way upward to heaven through all the intervening obstacles. It is indeed true, that adversities are tokens of God’s wrath, when viewed in themselves; but when pardon and reconciliation precede, we ought to be assured that God, though he chastises us, yet never forgets his mercy: he indeed thus reminds us of what we have deserved; but he no less testifies, that our salvation is an object of his care, while he leads us to repentance.
But he calls it the love of Christ, and for this reason, — because the Father has in a manner opened his compassions to us in him. As then the love of God is not to be sought out of Christ, Paul rightly directs to him our attention, so that our faith may behold, in the rays of Christ’s favor, the serene countenance of the Father. The meaning is, — that in no adversities ought our confidence to be shaken as to this truth — that when God is propitious, nothing can be adverse to us. Some take this love in a passive sense, for that by which he is loved by us, as though Paul would have us armed with invincible courage but this comment may be easily disproved by the whole tenor of Paul’s reasoning; and Paul himself will presently remove all doubt by defining more clearly what this love is.
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Tribulation, or distress, or persecution? etc. The pronoun masculine which he used at the beginning of the verse, contains a hidden power: for when he might have adopted the neuter gender and said — “What shall separate us?” etc., he preferred ascribing personality to things without life, and for this end, — that he might send forth with us into the contest as many champions as there are of temptations to try our faith.
But these three things have this difference: tribulation includes every kind of trouble or evil; distress is an inward feeling, when difficulties reduce us to such an extremity, so that we know not what course to pursue. Such was the anxiety of Abraham and of Lot, when one was constrained to expose his wife to the danger of prostitution, and the other, his daughters; for being brought to straits and being perplexed, they found no way of escape. Persecution properly denotes the tyrannical violence by which the children of God were undeservedly harassed by the ungodly. Now though Paul denies in 2 Corinthians 4:8, that the children of God are reduced to straits, στενοχωρεῖσθαι, he does not yet disagree with himself; for he does not simply make them to be exempt from anxious solicitude, but he means that they are delivered from it, as also the examples of Abraham and Lot testify.
John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp1656 · Public DomainOn vv35–3935 Who shall separate us from the love of…
35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?
Ver. 35. Who shall separate us] Who shall separate me? saith the Syriac.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole1685 · Public DomainOn vv35–39Who shall separate us? He continues his triumph: he…
Who shall separate us? He continues his triumph: he does not say what, but who; though he instanceth in things, and not in persons, yet it is expressed personally, because that these things do commonly do us hurt in the improvement of persons, whether of Satan or wicked men, who are instrumental thereunto.
From the love of Christ; understand it either actively, from our love of him; or passively, from his love of us. The latter seems to be chiefly intended;
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Who shall separate us from the love of Christ, or from the sense and manifestation thereof?
Shall tribulation, &c. He makes an enumeration of particular evils, of seven in number; and he begins with the lesser, and rises to the greater; placing them in order, not casually, but by choice. The word tribulation signifies any thing that presseth or pincheth us.
Or distress? The word properly signifies straitness of place, and is transferred from the body to the mind, to point out the anguish or perplexity thereof.
Or persecution; the word properly signifies a driving from place to place; banishment is implied therein, if not chiefly intended: see Mat 10:23.
Or peril; any danger or hazard of life, in any kind whatsoever: see 2Co 11:26.
Or sword; this is put figuratively for death itself, especially violent death.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
William Burkitt1703 · Public DomainOn vv35–38That is, none shall separate, nothing shall separate the…
That is, none shall separate, nothing shall separate the believer from the love of Christ; either from the love that Christ bears to him, or from that love which he bears unto Christ; no person shall, no condition of life can separate them, neither outward troubles, nor inward distresses, no evils either felt or feared; the apostle defies and despises them all, because neither of them alone, nor all together, can unclasp the arms of divine love, in which believers are safely enfolded.
Learn hence, That no troubles, tribulations or distresses whatsoever, can dissolve the union betwixt Christ and believers, or ever separate them from his love.
William Burkitt's Expository Notes on the New Testament (1700–1703) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
John Gill1763 · Public DomainOn vv35–39Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?....…
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?.... By "the love of Christ" is not meant the saints' love to Christ, but his love to them; he is indeed the object of their love, and so strong is their love to him, that it can never be destroyed; for though there may be an abatement in the fervour of it, it can never be lost; yet this is never called the love of Christ: besides, the apostle is speaking not of their love to Christ, but of the love of God and Christ to them, throughout the context; and his design is, to strengthen the faith of God's people, and comfort their souls, under their various afflictions: now nothing more effectually serves such purposes, than the love of Christ; and the things here instanced in are such, as are apt to inject doubts and fears, about interest in the love of Christ, and of the love of God in Christ, as it is interpreted in some following verses: moreover, the separation here interrogated is not of Christ from us, but of us from him; whereas was it our love to Christ, which is here meant, it should rather have been put, who shall separate him from us, and not us from the love of Christ? That Christ does love the elect of God, who are the persons here spoken of, is evident from his undertaking for them, espousing their persons, assuming their nature, dying in their room and stead, paying off their debts, and redeeming their persons, by going to prepare a place for them, by interceding for them, by supplying them with all grace, and using them in the most free and familiar manner; which love of his is wonderful, matchless, and inconceivable, special and peculiar, free and undeserved, exceeding affectionate, unchangeable, durable, and for ever. This is the bond of union to Christ; and the union which is made by it is exceeding near and close; it is real; perfect, and indissoluble, nothing can separate from it: not
tribulation; or "affliction", which springs from his love, and is the fruit of it; and notwithstanding that, he rests in his love; this is not taken away, but is often sensibly enjoyed, in the midst of afflictions:
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or distress; whether of body or mind; straitness in the affairs and circumstances of life, or straitness of mind, in the exercise of grace, and discharge of duty; for "though we believe not, yet he abides faithful", Ti2 2:13, to his covenant and promises:
or persecution: from the world; for this is rather an evidence that Christ has loved them chosen and called them, because the world hates them:
or famine: want of the necessaries of life, as food and drink; being exposed to great hunger and thirst, which has sometimes been the lot of the dear children of God:
or nakedness; want of proper clothing, or the use of common apparel; wandering about in sheep skins and goat skins, which has been the case of some, of whom the world was not worthy, and so no proof of separation from the love of Christ:
or peril; dangers from different quarters, by different persons and ways; such as the Apostle Paul had trial of, who was highly in the love of Christ, Co1 11:26;
or sword; that is, death by the sword; which death James the brother of John died, Act 12:13, now, though this may separate the head from the body, and separate soul and body, yet cannot separate from the love of Christ.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley1765 · Public DomainOn vv35–38Who shall separate us from the love of Christ…
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ - Toward us? Shall affliction or distress - He proceeds in order, from less troubles to greater: can any of these separate us from his protection in it; and, if he sees good, deliverance from it?
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke1810 · Public DomainOn vv35–39Verse 35. Who shall separate us from the love…
Verse 35. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?] I do think that this question has been generally misunderstood. The apostle is referring to the persecutions and tribulations to which genuine Christians were exposed through their attachment to Christ, and the gracious provision God had made for their support and final salvation. As in this provision God had shown his infinite love to them in providing Jesus Christ as their sin-offering, and Jesus Christ had shown his love in suffering death upon the cross for them; so, here, he speaks of the love of the followers of God to that Christ who had first loved them. Therefore the question is not, Who shall separate the love of Christ from us? or prevent Christ from loving us? but, Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Who or what shall be able to remove our affection from him? And the questions that immediately follow show that this is the sense of the passage; for the tribulation, distress, c., which he enumerates, are things by which they might be affected, but by which Christ could not be affected and, consequently, the question most evidently refers to their love to him who had first loved them, and, while it affords a strong presumption of their perseverance, furnishes a most powerful argument against apostasy.
Shall tribulation?] φλιψις, grievous affliction, or distress of any kind; from φλιβω, to compress, oppress, straiten, c. any thing by which a man is rendered miserable.
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Or distress?] στενοχωρια, a word of nearly the same import with the former, but more intense in its signification. It signifies straitness, being hemmed in on every side, without the possibility of getting out or escaping; from στενος, strait or narrow, and χωρος, a place.
Or persecution?] διωγμος, from διωκω, to pursue, press upon, prosecute, signifies such pursuing as an enemy uses in order to overtake the object of his malice, that he may destroy him.
Or famine?] λιμος, from λειπω, to fail; the total want of bread, and all the necessaries of life.
Or nakedness?] γυμνοτης, being absolutely without clothing; forcibly expressed by the derivation of the word γυιαμοναεχων, having one's limbs only, being totally unclothed.
Or peril?] κινδυνος, a state of extreme and continued danger, perplexing and distressing with grievous forebodings and alarms; derived from κινειταςοδυνας, it excites anguish; because much evil is felt, and much more feared.
Or sword?] μαχαιρα, slaughter; the total destruction of life, and especially beheading, and such like, done by the order of the civil magistrate; for the word is used in this epistle, Ro 13:4, to signify the authority and power which he has of judicially terminating life; i.e. of inflicting capital punishment.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson1811 · Public DomainOn vv35, 38Rom 8:35-37. Who shall separate us — By saying…
Rom 8:35-37. Who shall separate us — By saying τις, who, the apostle personifies the things he is going to mention, namely, affliction, &c.; from the love of Christ — Toward us? By this, some understand the love which we bear to Christ. But to separate us from our own love, seems an unusual expression. Even this, however, may be included thus; — What creature or occasion shall cause us to withdraw our love from him, and consequently cause him, in any degree, to withdraw his love from us? Shall tribulation? or affliction, as θλιψις is generally rendered; or distress? —
Στενοχωρια, perplexity, when we know not which way to turn ourselves. The former word, according to Esthius, signifies sickness and other bodily evils; whereas the latter rather means trouble of mind, arising from doubtful and perplexing straits and difficulties. He proceeds in order from less troubles to greater. Can any of these separate us from his protection in the trial, and (if he sees good) deliverance from it? The sword is here put for a violent death. As none can imagine that Christ would love his faithful servants less for enduring such extremities for his sake, the text must of necessity be intended to express the apostle’s confidence, that his love to his people, illustrated already in so glorious a manner, would engage him to support them under all their trials, by vital communications of divine strength. As it is written, For thy sake we are killed all the day — That is, every day, continually: we are accounted — By our enemies, by ourselves; as sheep for the slaughter — The Psalm from which this quotation is taken, is thought by some to have been written during the Babylonish captivity, when the Jews suffered great persecution for their religion: but at other times also the Jews were exposed to a variety of evils from their conquerors, on account of their adherence to the worship and service of the true God. See note on Psa 44:22. Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors — We are not only no losers, but abundant gainers by all these trials. The original expression, υπερνικωμεν, signifies to obtain a great victory. “The victory which the people of God obtain over their persecutors is of a very singular nature. It consists in their patient bearing of all the evils which their persecutors inflict upon them, and that through the assistance of Christ, and in imitation of his example. For by suffering in this manner, they maintain his cause in spite of all opposition, and confound their persecutors.”
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes1834 · Public DomainOn vv35–39Who shall separate us - That is, finally or…
Who shall separate us - That is, finally or entirely separate us. This is a new argument of the apostle, showing his strong confidence in the safety of the Christian.
From the love of Christ - This expression is ambiguous; and may mean either our love to Christ or his love to us. I understand it in the former sense, and suppose it means, “Who shall cause us to cease to love the Saviour?” In other words, the love which Christians have for their Redeemer is so strong, that it will surmount and survive all opposition and all trials. The reason for so understanding the expression is, that it is not conceivable how afflictions, etc. should have any tendency to alienate Christ’s love “from us;” but their supposed tendency to alienate “our love” from him might be very strong. They are endured in his cause. They are caused, in a good degree, by professed attachment to him. The persecutions and trials to which Christians are exposed on account of their professed attachment to him, might be supposed to make them weary of a service that involved so many trials. But no, says the apostle. Our love for him is so strong that we are willing to bear all; and nothing that these foes of our peace can do, can alienate us from him and from his cause. The argument, therefore, is drawn from the strong love of a Christian to his Saviour; and from the assurance that nothing would be able to separate him from that love.
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On the other hand, it is alleged that “the object of the apostle is to assure us, not so immediately of our love to God, as of his love to us, by directing our attention to his predestinating, calling, justifying, and glorifying us, and not sparing his own Son, but delivering him up for us; that in addition to this it contributes more to our consolation, to have our minds fixed upon God’s love to us, than upon our love to him, which is subject to so many failings and infirmities.” Haldane.
Indeed the whole of this passage proceeds, in its triumphing strain, on the ground of what God and Christ have done “for us,” and not on the ground of anything belonging to us. It is therefore improbable, that the apostle, in the midst of such a strain, should introduce the love of the creature to God, as a just reason for such unparalleled confidence. It is more natural to the Christian to triumph in the love of Christ to him, than in any return he can make. He can glory in the strength of the former, while he mourns over the weakness of the latter. As to the objection that afflictions can have no tendency to alienate Christ’s love, these are the “very things” that alienate people from us. There are persons who are called “summer friends” because they desert us in the winter of adversity. But the love of Christ is greatly exalted by the fact, that none of all possible adverse circumstances, of which the apostle enumerates not a few, shall ever change his love.
Shall tribulation - θλίψις thlipsis. Note, Rom 2:9. The word properly refers to pressure from without; affliction arising from external causes. It means, however, not infrequently, trial of any kind.
Or distress - στενοχωρία stenochōria. This word properly means “narrowness of place;” and then, great anxiety and distress of mind, such as arises when a man does not know where to turn himself or what to do for relief. It refers, therefore, to distress or anxiety “of mind,” such as the early Christians were often subject to from their trials and persecutions; 2Co 7:5,” Without were fightings, “within were fears;” see the note at Rom 2:9.
Or persecutions - Note, Mat 5:11. To these the early Christians were constantly exposed.
Or famine - To this they were also exposed as the natural result of being driven from home, and of being often compelled to wander amidst strangers, and in deserts and desolate places.
Or peril - Danger of any kind.
Or sword - The sword of persecution; the danger of their lives to which they were constantly exposed. As all these things happened to them in consequence of their professed attachment to Christ, it might be supposed that they would tend to alienate their minds from him. But the apostle was assured that they had not this power, but that their love to the Saviour was so strong as to overcome all, and to bind them unalterably to his cause in the midst of the deepest trials. The fact is, that the more painful the trials to which they are exposed on his account, the more strong and unwavering is their love to him, and their confidence in his ability to save.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary1859 · Public DomainOn vv35, 38, 39Who then, or what shall separate us from the…
Who then, or what shall separate us from the love of Christ? Neither devils, nor men, nor any thing in nature, unless it be by our own fault, and unless we wilfully and sinfully leave God. --- I am sure. In the Greek, I am [7] fully persuaded, that nothing can separate us, &c. In fine, another argument to prove we ought to have a firm hope in God, is that Christ Jesus, who sits at the right hand of God, also intercedeth for us. Christ, as man, intercedeth, prayeth for us, is our advocate and chief mediator See Hebrews vii. Christ is truly said to pray for us in heaven, though it is not the custom of the Church to call upon him in this manner, "Christ pray for us;" because being God, as well as man, he has all things under his command. (Witham)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown1871 · Public DomainOn vv35–39Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?--This…
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?--This does not mean "our love to Christ," as if, Who shall hinder us from loving Christ? but "Christ's love to us," as is clear from the closing words of the chapter, which refer to the same subject. Nor would the other sense harmonize with the scope of the chapter, which is to exhibit the ample ground of the believer's confidence in Christ. "It is no ground of confidence to assert, or even to feel, that we will never forsake Christ; but it is the strongest ground of assurance to be convinced that His love will never change" [HODGE].
shall tribulation, &c.--"None of these, nor all together, how terrible soever to the flesh, are tokens of God's wrath, or the least ground for doubt of His love. From whom could such a question come better than from one who had himself for Christ's sake endured so much? (See 2Co. 11:11-33; Co1 4:10-13). The apostle says not (remarks CALVIN nobly) "What," but "Who," just as if all creatures and all afflictions were so many gladiators taking arms against the Christians [THOLUCK].
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon1874 · Public DomainOn vv35–3935. Who… separate—The apostle now issues his third challenge…
35. Who… separate—The apostle now issues his third challenge to the foes of the redeemed. He has called for the accuser, the condemner, and now he summons the separator, sure that none dare appear. He next challenges an entire catalogue of enemies by name and declares the discomfiture of all.
Love of Christ—It is a strange dispute between commentators whether this phrase signifies our love to Christ or Christ’s love to us. We often speak of a person being separated from another’s affection, but whoever heard of a man being separated from his own love to another? Besides, it is God’s and Christ’s maintenance of the cause of the Christian which runs through the entire passage. In the present verse the apostle enumerates a series of earthly or natural foes of the Christian, and in 38 and 39 the supernatural or transcendent.
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Nothing, indeed, can separate the believer from Christ; but the man may depart from his faith and cease to be a believer. Nothing can kill the Christian, but he may commit suicide. None can pluck him out of his Father’s hand, but he may leap out of that hand himself. And hence of that one enemy which a man may be to himself the apostle makes no mention in his hostile catalogue.
Tribulation—The apostle now enumerates seven enemies which assail the Christian in vain. Not but that these foes can materially harm him, though they can neither accuse nor condemn him as before God. From their corporeal assaults, even the Divine Protector promises no immunity and no deliverance from their earthly power. But they cannot break, they will brighten, rather, and strengthen the golden chain that fastens the justified to Christ.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges1878 · Public DomainOn vv35–3935. Who shall separate us] He speaks in view…
35. Who shall separate us] He speaks in view of these amazing proofs of the grace and truth of the Father and the Son.—“Who,” not “what;” although the following words are of things, not persons. This is in harmony with the intense and vivid tone of the whole passage. Cp. Joh_10:28-29; “no one shall pluck them out of my hand; no one can pluck them out of my Father’s hand.”—“Us” is slightly emphatic by position: q. d., “us, thus cared for and pleaded for.”
the love of Christ] Same word as 2Co_5:14; Eph_3:19. It is the love of Christ for us, not ours for Him. The whole context here relates to our security through the goodness of God.—In what sense are the things now to be named viewed as “not separating” us from this love? Probably they are to be taken as so many veils or clouds between us and the (outward) manifestation of the love; things which might tempt the believer to think that his Lord had forsaken him. St Paul assures him that this cannot be really so; the separation is but seeming; the love is indissoluble.
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tribulation, &c.] St Paul had indeed a right to use such language as the language of experience. See e.g. 2Co_11:23-27; 2Ti_3:10-12. Cp. Heb_11:35-38, (of the O. T. saints.)
It will not be out of place to quote from the letter of a sufferer for his faith, in the French galleys, 1739: “Having, by the grace of God, made a Christian profession, we are bound to be faithful soldiers and submit to the Lord’s will. Our chains are where He has placed them. Our persecutors think to disgrace us by putting us with malefactors; but in this we are honoured of God, who gives us cause for rejoicing that He counts us worthy to bear shame for the name of Jesus.… God has predestinated us to be conformed to the image of His Son, that suffering with Him we may also be glorified together. Our life is hid with Christ in God; but when Christ who is our life shall appear, then shall we also appear with him in glory.” (Letter of M. Villevaire, in Bonnefon’s Life of B. du Plan, p. 241, Eng. Trans.)
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers1878 · Public DomainOn vv35–39(35) The love of Christ.—That is to say, the…
(35) The love of Christ.—That is to say, the love which Christ has for us, not that which we have for Christ.
Shall tribulation?—Comp. 2Co_6:4; 2Co_11:23. The Apostle is speaking from his own actual experience.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary1880 · Public DomainOn vv35, 38Vers. 35-39. Who shall separate us from the love…
Vers. 35-39. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? (i.e. the love of Christ to us, and in the same sense "the love of God" below; cf. tou agaphsantov hmav in ver. 37). Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written, For thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. (This quotation of Psa_44:22 may be introduced as showing that such trials have ever been the lot of God"s servants, and did not separate the saints of old from God.) Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors (upernikwmen we not only conquer in spite of them; we conquer all the more because of them; cf. Rom_5:3, etc., and Rom_8:28) through him that loved us. For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall he able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. In these two concluding verses the thought is distinctly extended from circumstances of trial to all powers, human or superhuman, that may be conceived as assaulting us through them, or in any way opposing us. But it is still adverse powers and influences, not our own failure in perseverance, that are in view. It is not necessary to define what is exactly meant by each of the expressions in these verses. Enough to say that what is meant is, that nothing whatever, in heaven or earth, or under the earth, can thwart God"s good purpose for us, or separate us from his love.
The following paraphrastic summary of this important chapter, free from the encumbrance of notes, may help to a clearer perception of its drift and sequence of thought:
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There is then no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus.
Vers. 35-37. Certainly not these present trials and calamities, however severe; though "we are killed all day long, and are appointed as sheep for the slaughter." Through Christ, who so loved us as to share them, we are conquerors all the more by means of them.
Spiritual victory.
It is not every good cause which, as far as we can see upon earth, when opposed with human hostility, prospers and triumphs, at once, manifestly, and for ever. This only proves that Providence takes a wider view than is possible to us, and has purposes extending far beyond this world. But the one great cause of moral goodness, the cause of Christ, is always really victorious. The warfare is just, the weapons sound, the Captain skilful, and victory certain.
I WHAT CONSTITUTES THE CHRISTIAN"S VICTORY. In the first age the conflict was to a large extent with open persecution. Jesus himself endured "the contradiction of sinners," and warned his apostles to expect the same. In our time there is indeed persecution for Christ"s sake to be endured, both open and secret; but perhaps the dangers now to be dreaded are those of prosperity rather than of adversity. Pure Christianity has to combat scepticism, materialism, the self-indulgent habits of the age. Pure Christianity has to be upon its guard against superstitious views and habits, and mere outward compliance with public opinion. Such influences openly or insidiously threaten the religious life, especially of the young and the unwary. Hence the necessity of watchfulness, of preparation, of the Divine panoply, of courage and endurance. For the promise is to "him that overcometh," and the true soldier is ever the true conqueror.
II WHAT ENHANCES THE CHRISTIAN"S VICTORY. Christians are assured that they shall be "more than conquerors exceeding or triumphant conquerors.
1. The severity of the conflict. This is evidenced by the admitted power of the enemy and the variety of his attacks, by the number who in the past have been defeated by the foe of Christ, by the defection of many fainthearted or disloyal combatants, and by the protraction of the conflict.
2. In contrast with all this has to be considered the thoroughness of the conquest. This is evidenced by the magnificence of the reward to the victors, by the vast number of those who shall share the honours of the victory, and by the glory and perpetuity of the triumph which shall follow.
III WHAT SECURES THE CHRISTIAN"S VICTORY. At first there may appear to be some incongruity in the expression, "more than conquerors through him that loved us. " Yet upon reflection it will appear that he must indeed have loved us, to mingle in such a fray and to lead his soldiers and followers even unto his own death. And the teaching alike of Scripture and of individual experience assures us
(1) that Jesus conquered the foe for us, when he really overcame the world and Satan, by whom he seemed, to superficial observers, himself to be vanquished; and
(2) that Jesus conquers the foe in us, giving us the example, the motive, the spiritual power and principle which ensure to us immortal victory.
Vers. 35-39. The great persuasion.
This second special question which Paul asks has reference to that final glorifying of believers by God, that perfect conformation to the image of his Son, which is the import of his purpose concerning them, the goal of all his working. The "love of Christ," or the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord," is represented as laying hold of them with a firm grasp, to rescue them from death, and to raise them to perfect newness of life; and the apostle asks, in view of all possible evils which might seem to threaten the accomplishment of such purpose, assuming, of course, their own continued loyalty of heart, "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?" and, as he recapitulates all actual or imagined perils, the ready answer still breaks forth from his lips, "Nought, nought shall separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord I" We have, then, here for our consideration love; love"s hindrances; love"s triumph.
I LOVE. The great truth, great beyond all others, fundamental to all others; the truth to which all the revelations were designed to lead, and in which they culminate; the truth set forth so wondrously in the life and death of Christ, is this, that "God is love." This love was manifest in man"s creation, and in the rich resources of man"s world, furnished for man"s sake with such liberal lavishment; it was manifest yet more in man"s redemption, and in the rich resources of man"s spiritual world, prepared and furnished for man with infinite tenderness. And how has it not been manifest to each of the called ones, laying hold of them, lifting them from the depths, setting them even now in heavenly places, and destining them, as joint-heirs with Christ, to all the blessedness of an immortal future!
II LOVE"S HINDRANCES. But this love has its seeming hindrances; shall they obstruct the accomplishment of its designs?
1. Death and life.
(1) Death was no fancied evil then; for, as he tells us, it was only too true that "for God"s sake they were killed all the day long, accounted as sheep for the slaughter." And in another place he speaks of being, as it were, appointed to death". (1Co_4:9) And again (1Co_15:31) he says, I die daily." Not mere talk, for we know how in reality this was the seal of their witness-bearing. The Roman Christians, in after-times in what terrors was not death arrayed to them? As under Nero.
And so whenever the beast the brute power of ungodliness has made war with the saints. (Rev_13:7) And even now in the forefront of the conflict there is death for Christ"s sake; and to all there is the dread dying that sooner or later must end this mortal strife.
(2) But the life itself is filled with jeopardy. Perhaps really more trying test than any martyrdom: latter once for all, and glory round it; former protracted and commonplace.
(a) Positively: dangers and difficulties of circumstance and event; moral difficulties, as world"s reproach, and opposing one"s self to stream of custom; and difficulties relating to one"s own patient continuance in well-doing.
(b) Negatively: the allurements of temptation; repetition of primal fall. Thus life perpetually tries us.
1. Angels and principalities. Ephesians 6. opens our eyes to the tremendous forces arrayed against us. So Bunyan"s allegory no fiction. There is a real, objective opposition of spiritual wickedness" against us, and of what strength and subtlety who shall say? And through the medium of the strength and authority of the "powers" of this world; as Roman emperors.
2. Height and depth. Great exaltation, of this life or of the spiritual life, has its besetting temptations: so Paul himself (2Co 12) in danger of being "exalted above measure." Great depression or abasement has likewise its perils: rebellion, or despair.
3. Things present and things to come. Boding fears often worse than actual fightings. So we may "die a thousand deaths in fearing one.
4. Any other creation. The apostle has been hinting at a new creation, when the true Paradise shall be restored. But if the former Paradise was so perilous, and this creation now has so many perils, what may not the new creation bring? Shall that separate us from the love of Christ?
III LOVE"S TRIUMPH. Shall these things separate us from God"s love? Nay, God"s love is too strong; and God"s gifts, already given, are too great. And, indeed, those things all enter into the working of God"s purpose, and therefore cannot break it. Nay, more: if they enter into the working of that purpose, they shall actually subserve it; and so we shall not only conquer, but more than conquer (ver. 28); for that which is against us shall become for us, evil shall be transformed to good, our enemies shall become unwitting friends. "More than conquerors!" Of our entry into life they swell the triumph (illustrate by triumph of Roman generals), and so an entrance is ministered to us abundantly into the everlasting kingdom.
Let this be our persuasion, our faith; so shall we be strong, and at last we shall realize the victory which is even now assured. T.F.L.
Victorious love.
This chapter is like a stream that gathers strength and volume as it flows. Beginning with the Christian"s state as one of freedom from condemnation, it ends by placing him on the summit of victory, radiant with the love of God. It is a chapter full of Christ. Christ in humiliation and triumph; Christ as the Sacrifice in whom sin was condemned, and, as the risen Redeemer, the Firstborn of many brethren; Christ as the present Strength of his people by his indwelling Spirit, and, as seated upon the throne, the perfect Son of God, to whose lineage all the sons are to be conformed. The earnest rhetoric of the apostle leads him to summon all adversaries to the bar, and challenge them to prove their ability to upset his reasonings and destroy the hopes of the followers of Christ. Who or what shall sever the tie that binds them to their Lord?
I THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE CHALLENGE. "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?" The passage requires us to understand the expression as referring rather to Christ"s love for us than to our response to his love. See the parallelism with ver. 37, "through him that loved us." And ver. 39 speaks of "the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." This interpretation loses no shade of meaning, since Christ"s affection involves our love in return, as its natural outcome. The expression is, in truth, a description of our religion. To be severed from Christ"s love means utter loss.
1. Christianity is founded upon the love of Christ. This looked down pityingly upon our dark and helpless world. It shone through all the symbols of the Law, pointing the worshippers to the coming Saviour. It nerved him to endure his anguish in the garden and on the cross. It has provided for man a day of grace, and the endowment of the Spirit to renew and sanctify.
2. The new life is dependent on the continued manifestation of this love. Remove the sunlight, and the plant sickens and dies. Let the supply of the air above be stopped, and the diver cannot breathe. Without the love of Christ operating on the heart, the sweetest ordinances lose their savour, communion by reading and prayer is eclipsed, no rainbow brightens the tears of penitence. The love of Christ shed abroad is the root of obedience. From it we draw our most influential motives to holiness and service. The lustre of our deeds is marred unless encircled by this golden band.
3. The love of Christ is the love of God herein revealed. Christ is the Horn of plenty by which the Father would pour into the lap of his children all good things. To be sundered from this love must signify, therefore, our estrangement from all that lifts us heavenward. Could this happen, Christianity were stilled into a frozen sea, the ripples and waves remaining in form, but not in motion and might a waste of desert ice. The query is not merely oratorical. Endeavours to intercept the love of Christ are reiterated and prolonged. The words that follow are not empty terms, not visions of the night, but stern foes, combatants to be encountered by day.
II THE CONFIDENT REPLY. The apostle answers his own query. Look at the particular things enumerated, and then appreciate the apostolic assurance.
1. The trials of life cannot defeat the purposes, of Christ"s love. "Tribulation, anguish, famine, nakedness," though they may becloud our path and awaken a bitter cry, yet, instead of being regarded as indications of abandonment, are rather signs of the providential discipline which perfects sanctification. The good Shepherd is moved to greater compassion at the sight of the wounds of his flock.
2. The hostility of an unbelieving world cannot dissolve this union. "Persecution, peril, and the sword" do but liken the servant to the Master. Piety has thriven most in days of ridicule and torment. Christian heroism cheerfully underwent the loss of goods, stripes, and imprisonment; it converted jails into holy fanes resounding with praise and prayer. "In that he suffered being tempted," he has proved himself "able to succour those that are tempted.
3. The apostle advances in his enumeration. Neither "death," however grim its aspect, nor "life," with its snares and bewitchments, its competitions, its trifles, can succeed in detaching the pilgrim from the protecting love of his Guide. Nor can the ranged battalions of evil win the victory. Christ triumphed over them, and conquers still.
4. So finally the apostle sums up in the emphatic comprehensive assertion that neither the forces of time, "things present and to come," nor the forces of space, "height and depth," bewildering the imagination or depressing the soul, no, "nor any other created thing," above or below, personal or impersonal, animate or inanimate, known or unknown, shall defeat the loving purpose of Christ in the salvation of his people. "Many waters cannot drown his love, nor the floods quench it.
III THIS CONFIDENCE JUSTIFIABLE.
1. The dignity of Christ"s Person and the perfection of his character forbid fear. His love falters not, is not fickle; it waxes, but never wanes. He does not undertake what he cannot accomplish, nor begin what is beyond his power to finish. The foes to our salvation were foreseen and measured from the first. To doubt it is to dishonour him.
2. The whole trend of the redemptive scheme is against any supposition of abandonment by Christ. How infinite the price already paid! How steadily and surely the great design of salvation has marched through the ages, developing ever deeper wisdom and unfailing resources! We might wonder that man had not been left to himself in his rebellion and a new race created; but man"s elevation having been promised and begun, every indication points to the ultimate fulfilment of our purest and brightest hopes.
3. Innumerable biographies confirm the apostle"s declaration. , May our life add another testimony! Look at the forces opposed to our steadfastness, and then, like Peter, we lose heart and begin to sink. Fix the gaze upon Christ, and our cheerful courage, our triumphant conviction of his unshakable love, will of itself lend such vigour to our loyalty that every apprehension of disaster shall vanish. S.R.A.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator1887 · Public DomainOn vv35, 38Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?
Rom_8:35-39
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?
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Dangers which cannot separate the believer front the love of God
We begin with the general proposition, Who shall separate us? etc. And for the love of Christ it may be taken either actively or passively; actively for our love of Him, or passively for His love of us, which latter acceptation of it seems to be that which is here chiefly intended. First of all, let us look upon it in the thing itself. Who or what shall take off the love of Christ from us? That is, indeed, nothing at all. First, no persons shall be able to do it, whether Satan or wicked men. These they do now and then attempt it: as they are out of Gods love themselves, so they would fain make others so too. First, not by means of accusation: accusation is an expedient way to take off affection. It was the course which Ziba took with Mephibosheth, the son of Jonathan, in reference to David. And it is the course which the devil and his instruments take with those which are faithful in reference to God. Satan he is the accuser of the brethren. Secondly, as not by accusation, so neither by temptation. Again, as no enemy or person, so further no state or condition. That there is no condition, though never so forlorn, that can make God to forsake His people. Now there is a various account which may be given hereof unto us. Ye may take it in these following particulars:--First, from Gods unchangeableness, and the immutability of His own nature considered in Himself (2Ti_2:13; Jam_1:17; Joh_13:1; Jer_31:3; Isa_54:8). Secondly, there is nothing which can separate the love of God from His children, or which can separate His children from His love, because this love of His it is not founded in anything in themselves. If the Lord did therefore love His people because they were thus and thus accommodated with riches, or honours, or strength, or any such accomplishment, He would then also cease to love them when that these were taken away from them. Thirdly, Gods love is immovable as to anything which may happen unto us, because it was pitched upon us before we were, or had any being. That love which is from eternity in its original. Fourthly and lastly, there is no removal or taking off of the love of God from His people, in regard of the conveyance of it to them and the person in whom it is laid; and that is in His Son Jesus Christ--Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? The love which God bears to a Christian it is a love of covenant; and this covenant made in Christ. The second is as to the discovery or manifestation of this His love--Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?--that is, what shall be a sufficient argument to persuade us that Christ does not love us? The afflictions of Gods children are no arguments for the separation of Gods love. First, because they are all dispensed out of the principles of love; that cannot be an argument to prove the want of love which is an argument rather to prove the truth of love, His love unto them. As many as I love, I rebuke, etc. Secondly, it cannot be that affliction should be a withdrawing of Gods affection, because He never shows more affection than He does in such a condition. Thirdly, these outward afflictions are no good argument for the separation of Gods love, because the love of God reaches farther than these things here below. It is not limited or confined to this present life. Times of separation in other respects, yet they cannot be separating in this. They may separate a minister from his people; they may separate a husband from his wife; they may separate a father from his children; they may separate the soul from its body. Oh, but they cannot separate a Christian or true believer from Christ, nor from the love of God to him in Christ. And so now I have done with the first general part of the text which is this question or challenge, as it is considerable in the general proposition, Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? The second is the particular specification of evils themselves, which are seven in number: Shall tribulation or distress? etc. The first which is here presented is tribulation. The word in the Greek signifies to press, or pinch, or vex; and the word in the Latin signifies a threshing instrument or flail, wherewith the corn uses to be broken or beaten out; both of them do serve to set forth to us the nature of this present evil. First, I say, this evil of tribulation, it is such as is incident even to the saints and servants of God; they are such as are liable to great pains and griefs of body. St. Paul he had his tribulation, his thorn in the flesh, etc. And so it is with many others, etc. The apostle here instances in this as a principal evil, as that which is more general and which few escape. As for some other particulars which we find here mentioned in the text, they are such as all do not taste of. But yet even this in the next place shall not separate them from the love of God in Christ; a child of God is most dear to Him, even under tribulation itself. The second particular evil is distress: shall distress? The Greek word signifies properly straitness of place, when a man is so hampered as that he knows not which way to move, as it is with those who are shut up in some close and strait prison, or are in some violent throng and crowd. Now, this is another evil which Gods people are also liable unto, as to great and strong pressures of body, so to be in many sad distractions of spirit, to be in distress. It has been the lot sometimes of those who have been the dearest servants of God. This is an evil somewhat further and heavier than the former, which we spake of before; anguish of spirit is somewhat more than pressure of body, and which many times has a great influence upon it, A Christian is never brought into those exigencies and straits and extremities but he has still a God to go to, into whose bosom he may comfortably empty and unload himself, and find satisfaction in all his distresses. The third is persecution: shall persecution? which signifies properly a driving from place to place. When men are forced and constrained to leave their home and proper habitations, and to fly into other places and countries. It may separate us from our houses, these poor cottages of clay, but it cannot separate us from God, who is our abode and dwelling-place in all generations, nor deprive us of our everlasting habitation. The fourth thing here instanced in is famine. This is another great affliction which Gods people are subject unto here in this life. It is a wonderful thing to consider what strange kind of ways and means God has been pleased to provide for His servants in this particular. The fifth particular evil is nakedness. This is another trial of the saints, and the evil of it consists in two particulars. The one is as it is matter of shame, and the other as it is matter of danger, and hazard of life itself. Well, but this nakedness or stripping of apparel cannot strip the children of God of His love and favour in Christ, which shall still compass them about as a garment. The sixth here instanced in is peril, whereby we are to understand any danger or hazard of life in any kind whatsoever. Danger and fear of evil is many times a greater evil than the evil itself; and we know what difficulties and adventures it has sometimes put men upon. There are seasons and times of peril which Gods children are exposed unto; but God does not leave them at such times, nor withdraw His love from them; in the world sometimes it is otherwise. There are many that will own their friends in times of safety, which yet will not know them in times of danger. The seventh and last is sword, whereby we are to understand all kind of violent death whatsoever. (Thomas Horton, D.D.)
Christs love to us
An aged man over ninety years of age was asked by his pastor this question: My dear aged friend, do you love Jesus? His deeply-furrowed face was lit up with a smile that sixty-seven years of discipleship had imparted, and, grasping my hand with both Of his, said: Oh! I can tell you something better than that. I asked him, What is that? Oh, sir! he said, He loves me.
The Christians security
There is a well-known little shell-fish which has its dwelling on the rocks. To these it clings with such surprising tenacity, that almost all attempts to dislodge it are vain. It takes alarm at the slightest touch; resists the more, the more it is assailed; and maintains its persistency to such degree, that it will sooner submit to be crushed than to be removed … Christian, learn of this little animal the secret of your strength and security in times of trouble. Your place of defence is the munitions of rocks. Let nothing draw or drive you from your stronghold.
The Christian rejoicing in Christs unchangeable love
I. The love of God as the ground of the Christians security. This love in Rom_8:39 he terms the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. This is consonant with the general testimony of Scripture. In Him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead; and if the fulness, then the love. So that it is useless to seek Gods love out of Christ--there is none out of Christ. Now to make this love our confidence, we must bear in mind two things--
1. It has been the spring of all that has been done for our salvation.
(1) We speak of God as acting in this with a view to His own glory. True, but this is what we might almost venture to call an incidental circumstance. The sun manifests his glory as he rises day by day, but it is not the brightness of the sun that causes him to arise; we must look elsewhere for the source of that. So, if we would find the spring and origin of our salvation, we must look for it, not in the glory of the Godhead, but in the love of the Divine mind. Wisdom, justice, faithfulness, power, all shine forth here and are glorified; but how? As loves instruments. But what set love in action? We can give no answer; there is none to give; we are come to the fountain-head; we can go no farther.
(2) The same as to Christ. Various motives are assigned in Scripture for all He did and suffered for us; the hope of reward--for the joy that was set before Him He endured the Cross; obedience to His Father--He became obedient unto death; but without setting these things aside, we may still say, He loved us and gave Himself for us. He looked upwards--there was His Father whom He delighted to obey; He looked forwards--there was the glory He was soon to inherit; but no matter where He looked, His heart was with us.
2. The same love that was the spring of all that has been done for our salvation, still exists in God unimpaired and unchanged. The apostle, you observe, does not speak of it as something passed and gone. Many of the great things it has already done, it is not necessary it should do again. If Christ has once died for my soul, His one oblation of Himself once offered fully atones for all my sins; if God has once justified me, no other justification do I need; if He has built for me one heaven, I cannot want another; but so much does He love me now, that if my Saviour had not died, if my guilty soul had not been justified, etc., my God would do for me just what He has already done. For six thousand years the sun has shone without suspension, but there will come a day when he will shine no more. But the love of God existed for a boundless period before that sun, and it will exist for as boundless a period after Him. It is not something God has created; it is a part of His own nature.
II. The confidence we may feel, if we have an interest in this love, that nothing can ever separate us from it.
1. There is a love of God in which we are all interested, for we are all partakers of it. It keeps us in being, it gives us innumerable comforts, it makes to us in the gospel the most gracious offers of salvation; but if we trample on these offers or neglect them, there comes a time when this love turns away from us. It would go farther with us, but it cannot. The question is, then, Are you the objects of Gods peculiar, saving love? And the way to answer it is to ask, Have you ever sought to become the objects of it? Most men hold the love of God cheaper by far than they hold one anothers love. Do you feel that it is dearer to your soul than all other love?
2. There are two ways in which we can conceive it possible for a separation to be made between us and Gods love. One is, for Him to withdraw His love from us; the other, for us to withdraw ourselves from that. The uniting cord, we may say, may break at either end, either at its higher end with God, or at its lower end with us.
(1) As to the former of these cases, we need scarcely say a word. The very supposition seems a dishonour to Jehovah. He abandon me after having once freely loved me, and brought me to love and trust Him? I can feel, with Paul, that the whole universe could not prevail on Him to do it, were the whole universe to try (Rom_8:38). Other love will often cool and wither away of itself; here is a love which nothing can wear away.
(2) But let us turn to the other case--the drawing of us away from our love to Christ. This, the apostle expresses his firm conviction, is also impossible; and this conviction, he states, is the result of his own experience. There may now and then, he intimates, be struggling and conflict; we may have to put forth our strength, and a strength greater than ours, against these things, the force and pressure of them, but the struggle is sure to end in one way--we overcome. He has made to us new discoveries of His love in it, and these have made us more determined to love and adhere to Him. (C. Bradley, M.A.)
Separated from Christ
1. The apostle had passed through experiences varied and trying enough to entitle him to make this inquiry. He knew what he was talking about. It is not the unchastened enthusiasm of a recruit, but the sober declaration of a veteran that is before us--a No which has an unconquerable human soul in it! History has sufficiently answered this inquiry from one side of Christian experience. Set it down as a fact that terror has failed. The scaffold, the rack, the stake, the dungeon, have fairly been worsted in this great fight. Enemies have killed the body, but the principle of truth lives; they have slain Christians, but Christianity is conqueror.
2. But has the apostle covered the whole ground? Does he exhaust the whole possibility of Christian trial? I think not. It is instructive to mark the development of the antagonisms to Christianity. In the text we have nothing but the roughest and vulgarest of opposition, yet the most natural. The fist, the thumb-screw, the scourge, are what we think of at the beginning: first, that which is natural, afterwards that which is spiritual. The opposition does not end where the cruelty ends. We have thought that now the day of persecution has gone. I propose to substitute, Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall flattery, or ease, or luxury? shall selfishness or gentility, or the praise of men? The apostles were not tried upon these points. They were only out in the rough weather: they knew not the warmth of flattery or the power of the soft tongue. They fought their battle to the point of triumph; how are we going to fight ours? They conquered the stake: can we throw off the silken cords?
3. Paul himself gave an answer to the inquiry at a later date: Demas hath forsaken me, having loved this present world. When he wrote this epistle no answer came back upon him. But when he became an older man he saw further into the subtle play of the devil, and lived to see that love of the present world had done what tribulation, distress, etc., had failed to do! See the beginning of the mischief! Demas was separated from his nominal love of Christ, not by the sword, but by a bribe. If any man love the world the love of the Father is not in him. No man can serve two masters. Ye cannot serve God and Mammon! Yet men are still tempted to believe that somehow, having two hands, they can carry two worlds, and having two feet, they can walk upon two paths. Go to a Christian man and say, If you do not surrender your religious convictions you shall be burnt in the public market-place as a common felon, and if there is one spark of real manhood in his nature he will say, So be it! in the sufficiency of Divine grace I am ready. Go to that self-same man in a neighbourly way and show him how a certain thing in trade can be done so as to put him into the possession of considerable resources--with which he can afterwards do good. Possibly you may succeed! When you threatened him with the stake, he spat upon your fire; when you tempted him with a bribe, he said, I will think about it. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Not Nero; but a friend in the trade! Men are separated from the love of Christ in the name of wife and children. If thou wast a single man, and thy universe bounded by a carpet-bag, how virtuous and honourable thou wouldst be! You say to God in effect, The woman that Thou gavest to be with me, and the children of whom I am the father--these are my tempters. Has it come to this, that a man may not slay himself alone, but that he must do it in the name which should be dearest to him, and make his very children a weight about his neck that shall drag him to the depths of perdition? If you go to a Christian preacher and say to him, If you dont cease to preach you shall be thrown to the lions, if he has one spark of manhood left in him, he will declare his readiness to suffer in the name of Christ. The best memories will crowd upon him; he will think of that wondrous climax--Who through faith … stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence of fire, etc. When is the apostle going to finish that, and say, Refused the bribe; and as utterly defied the subtlety as the violence of the enemy? The apostle exclaimed to Timothy, Endure afflictions! What have we to say to young preachers now? Endure prosperity! It never occurred to Paul to say to Timothy, Now be on thy guard against flattery and merely outward success. When he charged those who were following him in the good cause, he said, Fight the good fight, endure hardness. All his talk ran along the line of his own experience, as if it never occurred to him that in the ages to come all the violent attacks would be laid aside and the enemy would betake himself to a more subtle course of assault upon the citadel of faith!
4. Turning this matter over carefully, I have seen how possible it might be for certain constitutions and temperaments really to be terrified from the open and distinct avowal of faith; yet right down in their hearts really to be loving Jesus all the time. But a man led away from the truth by a bribe, a soul to whom prosperity was shown as a lure--that is the meanest, basest cowardice! If the man who shrank from martyrdom may escape, what escape can there be for the man who took forbidden fruit, did things in secret which he was ashamed of in public, and who was separated from the love of Christ, not nominally and professionally, but who had his heart eaten out of him by some invisible and voracious foe? Separated from the love of Christ! What by? By the stroke of a feather! by a whispered temptation! by a mouthful of poisoned honey! The apostles gave the right answers to violence--what reply shall we make to subtlety? (J. Parker, D.D.)
The indissoluble bond
Who? No one who cannot do one of three things.
I. Annihilate the loved ones. The being who could blot out of existence those whom Christ loved might effect the object, but who could do this? No creature in the heavens or on the earth. No one but the Absolute.
II. Blot the loved ones from the memory of the lover. The being who could cause Christ to forget His disciples would succeed. For those whom we cease to remember we cease to love. But who can do this? He is omniscient, the past, present, and the future are all alike to Him. Duration is all a now to Him. He is the same yesterday.
III. Give new information of the loved ones to the lover. Were it possible for a being to inform Christ of some bad qualities and some enormous crimes connected with the loved ones of which He was ignorant, His love might be extinguished. But who could do this? No one in heaven or on earth. He knew from eternity all concerning the objects of His love. (D. Thomas, D.D.)
The two states
Is this he who so lately cried out, O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me? who now triumphs? O happy man! Who shall separate us from the love of God? Yes, it is the same. Pained then with the thoughts of that miserable conjunction with a body of death, and so crying out for a deliverer; now he hath found a deliverer to do that for him to whom he is for ever united. (Abp. Leighton.)
As it is written, For Thy sake we are killed all the day long.
Killing the saints
First, we will take notice of the affliction, and that is killing. We are killed. We see here what is the lot of the saints and servants of God. First of all, in regard of the enemies. What is the matter with them, that in their dealings with the people of God nothing will serve their turn but killing and slaying and taking away their lives? Surely it is not to be wondered at; there is very good reason for it, which may be given in these considerations: First, look upon them in their brood and generation and the stock they come of. Whose children are they? and from whom do they proceed? Children take after their parents. Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do (Joh_8:44). Therefore, in the second place, their dispositions carry them hereunto, and that in a twofold respect. First, it proceeds from their malice; they hate them and cannot abide them, therefore they kill them. Hatred, when it comes to the height of it, very easily proceeds to murder. The second is their jealousy and fear. As they kill them because they hate them, so they kill them because they fear them. Herod feared John, and therefore beheaded him. The second is how it comes about in regard of the saints themselves, whence they come to suffer it, and for what reason God Himself permits it. Why does He so? First, for the honour of religion and for the evidence of their faith itself, that the world from hence may be convinced of their sincerity and universal obedience to the will of God. Secondly, which is pertinent hereunto, for the multiplying and increasing of their number and the drawing on of more unto them. Thirdly, as the signification and evidence of future judgment and the dispensations of another world, the slaying and killing of the saints, it tells us what shall be done to the enemies, and how it is likely hereafter to go with the servants of God. Therefore it teaches us both to expect and prepare for the like, to provide for killing, and to be content to profess Christianity, even at so dear a rate as this. It will be worth it when all is done. For Thy sake we are killed. But if they were indeed killed, how could they say they were killed, and tell us so in so many terms? Killing, it takes away complaining, and makes the parties which are so dealt with incapable of saying what they are. First, as an expression of impatience, and making the worst of their evil and affliction that possibly they could. This we shall find sometimes to be the disposition of sorrow, to aggravate itself and make it seem greater than it is. But secondly, in the reality of the thing, the desperateness of their condition. They call it killing because it tended thereunto, and was in a manner death itself. Thirdly, from the preparation of their minds, and disposition which was in them hereunto, as occasion might require. The people of God in this Scripture count themselves killed, because they were ready to be so if God should please to call them unto it. Killing, it is not to be interpreted in this place according to the event, but according to the intention and purpose. They that go out in a wrong cause, they kill where they do not hit, because they go out upon killing and murdering principles. Lastly, the people of God might here say they were killed while they lived, by way of sympathy and participation. They were killed forasmuch as others were killed which they were interested in. And thus much now also of the first thing which I propounded to be considered in this complaint: the affliction itself, We are killed, or put to death. The second is the occasion or ground of it, We are killed for Thy sake, which may admit of divers constructions. First, as the pretence of the enemies. They kill us for Thy sake, that is, they deal thus cruelly with us, and make the world in the meantime believe as if herein they had respect unto Thee. Secondly, For Thy sake, that is, for our reference to. Thee, because we are Thy people, and worship Thy name, and profess Thy truth, and have Thy ordinances amongst us. Thirdly, it appears that Gods cause is the thing which the enemies aim at in their killing of Gods people, from a consideration of the means and ways whereby they labour to effect it, and that is by such as are most effectual to the extirpation of religion itself. Thirdly, For Thy sake. We may carry it a little further than so, not only as a complaint, but a confession. Not so much for a complaint of their enemies, as indeed a complaint of themselves. We are killed for Thy sake, that is, in satisfaction to Thy justice, Who art a just and righteous God, and wilt not suffer sin to be unpunished. Our enemies have nothing against us themselves, but they kill us for Thy sake, that is, to accomplish Thy holy decrees, to bring about Thy wise providence, to fulfil Thy righteous judgments, to visit and avenge the quarrel of Thy covenant. And so much of these words, as they may be taken under the emphasis of complaint. The second is under the emphasis of triumph, in the words of the apostle, and so we have this from it, that the main ground of rejoicing in suffering is the cause we suffer for. Then we have cause of quiet and comfort, when we can say, Tis for Thy sake. There are two things which are principally to be looked at in suffering--the one is a good conscience, and the other is a good cause. This it serves as a distinction between martyrs and malefactors. (Thomas Horton, D.D.)
Suffering in Gods cause
First, we will take it emphatically, and consider it so. There is that in the cause of God which is able to keep the heart up in the greatest sufferings. To be killed for Gods cause, it is a matter of special triumph. Secondly, it is a matter of rejoicing to suffer for Gods sake, because herein we are made conformable to Christ Himself. Thirdly, we hereby come to partake of greater glory hereafter; suffering in a good cause has the promise of a good reward, and has amends made it for time to come in another place (Mat_5:11-12). And thus it is true emphatically. That suffering for Gods sake is a matter of joy and rejoicing, we are killed: therefore glory in this our tribulation. Secondly, we may take it exclusively. For Thy sake we are killed, and that is for Thy cause and nothing else. From whence we have this observable, that there is not anything in suffering which can comfort the heart for itself except it be for Gods cause. It is not the punishment, but the cause, which makes the martyr. Again, further, as out of this there is no comfort in suffering, so indeed there is a great deal of discontent when a man shall reflect and enter into his conscience, and find that he does not suffer for Gods cause; he will have a very sad reckoning to make of it when he shall give up his accounts to God. There are three particular considerations which do make our sufferings and persecutions to be said to be for Gods sake. First, the intent of the enemies which we suffer from. We then suffer in this sense for Gods sake when they shall impose such evils and sufferings upon us in reference to God, because we are professors of religion and maintain the cause of God. It is thus far a suffering for Gods sake because the enemy he looks at God in it. But, secondly, we may be said to suffer for Gods sake from the nature of the thing itself which we suffer for. This now, it comes a little nearer, a man suffers for Gods sake when he suffers for well-doing, not only in the apprehension of the enemy, but likewise in the thing itself. First, when it is sinful in itself. He that suffers thus does not suffer for Gods sake, let an enemy be never so violent. Again, secondly, as when it is sinful in the thing. So likewise, when it is mingled and involved with any sinful circumstances, we do not properly suffer for God except we suffer every way for God. Thirdly, we are said to suffer for Gods sake according to the disposition of the spirit we suffer with, that is, when we have a pure respect to Gods glory in our suffering. And this is the second particular, the ground or occasion of these sufferings, For Thy sake. The third particular in these words is the extent and continuance of the persecution, All the day long. First, I say, but for a day. It pleases the Spirit of God to set forth to us the Churchs persecution under an expression of short continuance; it is not a week, or a month, or a year, but only a day; it is but one day and we have done. When evils are at any time upon us, as we see they are now at this present, we think they will never be gone, through our impatient disposition; but we should learn in this case to submit to the providence of God in the humbling of ourselves for our sins. The second is the extent of its continuance. As it is but a day, so it is a whole day, all the day long. We must take notice of that. And under this expression we have three things intimated unto us. First, the continuance of the affliction, An whole day. This it does denote unto us thus much, how that the afflictions of the people of God they do stay and abide upon them their appointed time. The second is the unweariedness of the enemy, All the day long. It is a sign that they are not spent nor tired out in this execution. They kill, and take no respite between. First, because it is natural to them. It is a business which they are carried unto by their proper inclinations. Actions which are natural are unwearied. The eye it is not weary of seeing, nor the ear is not weary of hearing, nor the pulse is not weary of beating, because all these are natural to them. Secondly, it is delightful to them. That is another account of it. Those things which are pleasing are unwearied. Thirdly, they are unwearied in this business, because they have very good help and assistance to further them in it. Many hands they use to make light work. Where the burden lies all upon one, or some few, it is easy to be weary. Well, this teaches us what to do in this condition. If they kill all the day long, we should pray all the day long. The third is the patience of the saints, Killed all the day long. Who could ever endure that? Yes, there where God gives help and strength to bear it men may be able to do it. And so was the Church here; she did not faint under continual tribulations. Here is now the great faith and constancy and patience of the saints. (Thomas Horton, D.D.)
The world seeking to destroy the good
First, by way of designation, they have determined and appointed us hereunto. Thus it is with those who are enemies to the saints and people of God; they resolve, if they can, to destroy them. First, I say, they look upon them as unprofitable, as a people of whom there is no use or good comes at all. Creatures which are unprofitable, you know, we use to dispatch and destroy. But, secondly, as they look upon them as unprofitable, and so destroy them for that, so withal they look upon them as troublesome and pernicious, and destroy them for that. It is ordinary and familiar with them to impute all the mischief that falls out to them as the causes. Secondly, by way of expectation. They count us as sheep for the slaughter--that is, they make sure of our destruction; they do verily and fully make account to see us destroyed. The reason of it is this: First, because they would very fain have it so. That which men desire they believe. And then, secondly, because most commonly they judge according to outward appearance. And then, thirdly, the Lord does also infatuate them and give them up to their own imaginations and vain conceits many times. That is the second thing, by way, namely, of expectation, They count us as sheep, etc, that is, they make sure of our destruction. Thirdly and lastly, which I conceive is principally intended in a way of scorn and contempt, They count us as sheep for the slaughter, that is, they make no reckoning of our destruction. They make no more of killing us than a butcher would do of killing a sheep. First, I say, their readiness to procure it. That which men have any esteem or account of they are very chary how they set themselves about it. These enemies they do it readily; they are not long ere they set themselves about it. That is one thing whereby they discover how cheap such mens deaths are with them. Secondly, their unmercifulness in the doing of it. These and the like considerations do manifest this truth unto us, how cheap the death of Gods people is in the esteem and account of Gods enemies. Well, let it be as cheap as it will be with such graceless persons as these are, yet we know there is One which sets a price and valuation upon it. Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints. The second is the form of allegation, As it is written. Therefore let us be persuaded to the exercising of ourselves in this book with all kind of diligence, to be acquainted with the Word of God and the principal passages of it, so as it may be no strange or unheard-of thing to us. Ye see hero how the apostle alleges it here in this place, As it is written; no more, but so. He does not tell them where, nor in what place, as taking it for granted that they know it. We should be so cunning and skilled in the Scripture that we should be able to know when it is Scripture which is alleged to us and when it is not from our acquaintance and conversation in it. Now, secondly, for that which is intimated and signified from it. And that is this, as the consent of Scripture with Scripture, so the consent of times with times, and the conditions of the people of God in all ages of the Church. We see here that it is no new business for Gods people to be under affliction; we have it here upon writing and record as that which has been long ago. First, there are the same grounds of persecution in Gods people themselves. Secondly, there is the same disposition in their enemies as has been in times past. Thirdly, there is the same wisdom and power in God Himself: wisdom to know how to impose them, and power how to moderate that they exceed not and go beyond bounds and their due proper limits. (Thomas Horton, D.D.)
Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors.--
More than conquerors
I. The Christian is conqueror. The battle consists of a moral conflict, with inward and outward enemies all leagued in terrible force against the soul. To this is added--what, indeed, was most peculiar to the early Church--a war of external suffering, of penury, persecution, and martyrdom. Now the way Christ provides for the holy warriors passage through this fiery contest is not by shunning, but by facing the foe. The Captain of their salvation might have withdrawn His people from the field and conducted them to heaven without the hazard of a conflict. But not so. He will lead them to glory, but it shall be by the path of glory. They shall carve their way to the crown by the achievements of the sword. But in what sense are we conquerors? Just in that sense in which the Holy Ghost obtains the victory. It is not the believer himself who conquers; it is the Divine Spirit within. No movement is seen, no tactics are observed, no war-cry is heard, and yet there is passing within the soul a more important battle, and there is secured a more brilliant victory, than ever the pen of the historian recorded. There is the conquest of--
1. Faith (Heb_11:1; Joh_5:4). Faith in the truth of Gods word, in the veracity of Gods character, in the might, and skill, and wisdom of our Commander; faith, eyeing the prize, gives the victory to the Christian combatant, and secures the glory to the Captain of his salvation.
2. Patience (Heb_6:12; Heb_6:15). Is it no real victory when beneath the pressure of great affliction the Christian is enabled to say, Though He slay me yet will I trust in Him?
3. Joy (1Th_1:6; Jam_1:2; Joh_16:20). And who but Jesus can turn our sorrow into joy?--not only assuaging our griefs and tempering the flame, but actually making our sorrows the occasion of thanksgiving. Confide your grief to Jesus, and He will cause it sweetly to sing (Psa_30:11-12; 2Co_7:4).
II. He is more than a conqueror. The same word as a far more and exceeding and eternal weight of glory. So we are far more exceeding conquerors. It is more than a mere victory which the believer gains. A battle may be won at a great loss to the conqueror. A great leader may fall at the head of his troops. The flower of an army may be destroyed, and the best blood of a nations pride may be shed. But the Christian conquers with no such loss. Nothing whatever essential to his well-being is perilled. His armour, riveted upon his soul by the Holy Spirit, he cannot lose. His life, hid with Christ in God, cannot be endangered. There is not a grace in his soul but shall come out purer and brighter for the conflict. Losing nothing, he gains everything! All his resources are augmented by the result. His armour is brighter, his sword is keener, his courage is more dauntless, for the conflict. Faith is strengthened--love is expanded--experience is deepened--knowledge is increased.
III. through Him that loved us. Here is the great secret of our victory, the source of our triumph. Thanks be to God which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through the conquest which He Himself obtained, through the grace which He imparts, through the strength which Be inspires, through the intercession which He presents, in all our tribulation, distress, persecution, etc., we are more than conquerors. Fear not, then, the darkest cloud, nor the proudest waves, nor the deepest wants--in these very things you shall, through Christ, prove triumphant. Nor shrink from the battle with the last enemy. He stands at your side a crownless king, and waving a broken sceptre. (O. Winslow, D.D.)
More than conquerors
I. The victories already won by those who have been possessed by the love of Jesus.
1. Tribulation, in the Latin, signifies threshing, and Gods people are often beaten with the heavy flail of trouble; but they are more than conquerors, since they lose nothing but their straw and chaff. The Greek, however, suggests pressure from without. It is used in the case of persons who are bearing heavy burdens, and are heavily pressed upon. Now, there are very few who do not meet with outward pressure, either from sickness, poverty, or bereavement; but under all believers have been sustained. It is said of the palm-tree that the more weights they hang upon it the more straight and lofty it is; and it is so with the Christian.
2. Distress. The Greek refers to mental grief. Straitness of place is something like the word. We sometimes get into a position in which we feel as if we could not move; the way is shut up; and our mind is distracted; we cannot calm and steady ourselves. Well, now, if you are a genuine Christian, you will be more than a conqueror over mental distress. Jesus shall say, as He walks the tempest of your soul, It is I, be not afraid.
3. Persecution. This in all its forms has fallen upon the Church, and up to this moment it has never achieved a triumph, but it has cleared it of hypocrisy; when cast into the fire the pure gold lost nothing but its dross, which it might well be glad to lose.
4. Famine. We are not so exposed to this as they were in Pauls time, who suffered the loss of all their goods, and consequently did not know where to find food for their bodies. No doubt there are some now who by their conscientious convictions are reduced to famine. But Christians bear even this sooner than sell their conscience and stain their love to Christ.
5. Nakedness. Another terrible form of poverty.
6. Peril--i.e., constant exposure to sudden death. 7, The sword--one cruel form of death as a picture of the whole. The noble army of martyrs have given their necks to the sword as cheerfully as the bride upon the marriage day gives her baud to the bridegroom. At this day you are not, the most of you, called to all this, but if ye were, my Lord would give you grace to bear the test. Your danger is lest you grow rich, become proud, and conform to the world, and lose your faith. If you cannot be torn in pieces by the roaring lion, you may be hugged to death by the bear. I fear that the Church is far more likely to lose her integrity in these soft and silken days than she was in those rough times. Are there not professors whose methods of trade are just as vicious as those of the most tricky?
II. The laurels of the fight. The words more than conquerors might be rendered more exceeding conquerors. The Vulgate has a word which means over over-comers, over and above conquering. For a Christian to be a conqueror is a great thing: how can he he more than a conqueror? Because--
1. The power by which he overcomes is nobler far. Here is a champion just come from the Greek games, Why! the mans muscles are like steel, and you say to him, I do not wonder that you beat and bruised your foe; if I had set up a machine made of steel it could have done the same. Where is the glory? One big brute has beaten another big brute, that is all. Dogs and bulls and game-cocks have endured as much, and perhaps more. Now, see the Christian champion. He is a simple, unlettered person, who just knows that Christ came into the world to save sinners; yet he has won the victory over philosophers. He has been tempted and tried; he was very weak, yet somehow he has conquered. This is victory indeed when the base things of this world overthrow the mighty.
2. The conqueror fights with some selfish motive, even when the motive is patriotism. But the Christian fights neither for any set of men nor for himself: in contending for truth he contends for all men, but especially for God; and in suffering for the right he suffers with no prospect of earthly gain.
3. The Christian loses nothing even by the fight itself. In most wars the gain seldom makes any recompense for the effusion of blood; but the Christians faith, when tried, grows stronger; his patience, when tempted, becomes more patient.
4. Most conquerors have to struggle and agonise to win the conquest, but Christians, when their love to Christ is strong, have found it even easy to overcome suffering for the Lord. Look at Blandina, enveloped in a net, tossed upon the horns of bulls, and then made to sit in a red hot iron chair to die, and yet unconquered to the close. Indeed, the tormentors were tormented to think they could not conquer timid women and children. I saw upon the lake of Orta, in northern Italy, on some Roman holy day, a number of boats coming from all quarters of the lake towards the church upon the central islet of the lake, and it was beautiful to hear the plash of the oars and the sound of song; and the rowers never missed a stroke because they sang, neither was the song marred because of the plash of the oars, but on they came, singing and rowing: and so has it been with the Church of God. That oar of obedience, and that other oar of suffering--the Church has learned to ply both of these, and to sing as she rows, Thanks be unto God, who always maketh us to triumph in every place!
5. They have conquered their enemies by doing them good. The Church has been the anvil, but she has broken many hammers. All true believers are far more glorious than the Roman conqueror. What flowers are they which angels strew in the path of the blessed? What songs are those which rise from yonder halls of Zion, conjubilant with song as the saints pass along to their everlasting habitations?
III. The persons that have conquered. Men who believed in Christs love to them, and who were possessed with love to Christ. This is their sole distinction. The poorest have been as brave as the wealthy; the learned have died gloriously, but the unlearned have almost stolen the palm. There is room for all who love the Lord in this fight, and there are crowns for each.
IV. The power which sustained these more than conquerors. It was through Him that loved us. Much depends upon the leader. Christ showed them how to conquer by enduring and conquering as their example. They triumphed through Christ as their Teacher, for His doctrines strengthened their minds, but, above all, because Christ was with them. The name by which the apostle called our Lord is the key to the text, Through Him that loved us. They knew that He loved them, and that if they suffered for His sake, it was His love which let them suffer for their ultimate gain, and for His permanent honour. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
More than conquerors
They not only resist, but prevail; and not only prevail, but triumph. They not only refuse to succumb and submit to their enemies, but they make those enemies submit to them. They lead captivity captive; they take the spoils of death and hell. There is such a thing as so conquering in battle as to suffer as much loss as a defeat would have cost. Or an army may merely repulse a foe, and maintain its ground. Some commanders, who are too stubborn to be beaten, are yet totally unable to follow up a victory, or make any adequate use of it. It is not so with the Christian. He can keep his ground; he can repel his enemies. He can do much more than that, He can win from them, as it were, honour, riches, territory, and renown. He can make them defray the cost of the campaign. He can extort from them the materials of the reward of his triumph. He can bind them to his chariot wheels, and like the old Roman generals, when a public triumph was awarded them, he can make his vanquished foes serve his interests, and heighten the glory of his renown. All this, however, is not by any might or prowess of his own, but it is through Him that loved us, Of Christ it is affirmed that His foes are made His footstool; and from their backs, prostrate in the dust, He leaps up to His throne. And Christs victory is our victory too. If we suffer with Him, we shall also reign with Him. (T. G. Horton.)
More than a conqueror
I. The spiritual life of man on earth is a battle. This is true of all men, whether godly or ungodly. There are two powers in every mans soul eternally antagonistic--the spiritual and the carnal; the former struggling ever for the absolute right, and the other for the personally gratifying. In the case of the ungodly, of course the spiritual is the weaker. Selfishness and passions struggle to keep the conscience down; whereas, in the case of the godly, the spiritual is the stronger, and the struggle of the higher nature is, to bring the dictates of self and the flesh into absolute subjection. The preceding chapter is a moral history of this conflict.
II. A conqueror in this battle is a glorious character He who conquers his passions, and subdues all the evil tendencies of his nature, is a hero in the highest sense.
1. He has developed some of the noblest attributes--as courage, self-sacrifice, perseverance. It requires a far higher courage to battle on the unobserved arena of the soul, against the favourite lusts and gods of the depraved nature, than to face an army in the open field.
2. He has pursued a course absolutely right. The course of a warrior admits of many solemn questions as to its rectitude; but he who battles against the wrong in his own heart is engaged in a struggle of undoubted righteousness.
3. He has achieved a result entirely benevolent. Even the most useful of the mere material wars have been mixed with immense evils; but in the case of this moral victory, nothing is destroyed but the destroyer, etc.
III. The Christian is more than a conqueror. A man is a conqueror when he overcomes his enemy; he is more than this when he is a gainer by the conquest.
1. He has lost nothing in the conquest. He might have been a conqueror and yet have lost much by his battles. Indeed, most material conquerors have suffered great losses; if not a loss of property, a loss of friends; a loss, perhaps, of health; a loss of peace of mind. But a Christian conqueror has lost nothing.
2. He has gained much by his conquest.
(1) Power. There is a tribe of savages whose warriors have the idea that the strength of the men they have killed flows into them by the fatal stroke. This has a reality in the moral conflict. Every moral enemy slain gives the slayer strength.
(2) Dominion. In material warfare a man may conquer, often does, and not become a king. Not so in this conflict; the Christian conqueror becomes the monarch of his own soul.
(3) Invincibility. In physical campaigns, conquerors have been conquered over again. Not so in this spiritual victory; the man who once conquers sin, becomes unconquerable for ever--he is kept by the power of God, etc.
IV. The Christian is more than conqueror through Christ.
1. Christ revealed the terribleness of the enemy. The soul would not have known how terrible her spiritual enemies were, had it not been for the revelation of Christ. He has shown what sin is.
2. Christ furnished the armour for the battle (Eph_6:14-18).
3. Christ gave the inspiration for the engagement. His love kindled the martial spirit in the sinners soul, and roused him to the conflict.
4. Christ gave them the conquering power. He made His strength perfect in their weakness. Thus their victory is through Christ, and the songs of eternity ascribe all spiritual conquests to His love (Rev_5:9; Rev_5:12-13). (D. Thomas, D.D.)
More than conquerors
A heterogeneous mass the apostle here brigades together as an antagonistic army. There is no attempt at an exhaustive enumeration, or at classification.
I. The impotent enemies of love. There is contempt in the careless massing together of the foes which the apostle enumerates. He begins with the widest word that covers everything--affliction. Then he specifies various forms of it. Distress, straitening, as the word might be rendered. Then he comes to evils inflicted for Christs sake by hostile men, persecution. Then he passes purely physical evils, hunger and nakedness. Then he harks back again to mans antagonism, peril, and sword. And thus carelessly, and without an effort at logical order, he lumps together, as specimens of their class, these salient points, as it were, and crests of the great sea, whose billows threaten to roll over us; and he laughs at them all, as impotent and naught, when compared with the love of Christ, which shields us from them all. There is no need, in order to rise to the full height of the Christian contempt for calamity, to deny any of its terrible power. These things can separate us from much. They can separate us from joy, from hope, from almost all that makes life desirable. They can strip us to the very quick, but the quick they cannot touch. The frost comes and kills the flowers, burns the leaves, cuts off the stems, binds the sweet music of the flowing rivers in silent chains, casts mists and darkness over the face of the solitary grey world, but it does not touch the life that is in the root. You need not be very much afraid of anything being taken from you as long as Christ is left you. You will not be altogether hopeless so long as you feel the sweet and all-pervading consciousness of the changeless love of Christ.
II. The abundant victory of love. Mark how the apostle, in his enthusiastic way, is not content here with simply saying that he and his fellows conquer. There must be something more than that to correspond to the power of the victorious Christ that is in us. Note, then, further, that not only is this victory more than bare victory, being the conversion of the enemy into allies, but that it is a victory, which is won even whilst we are in the midst of the strife. No ultimate victory, in some far-off and blessed heaven, will be ours unless moment by moment, here, to-day, we are more than conquerors through Him that loved us. So, then, about this abundant victory there are these things to say--You conquer the world only then when you make it contribute to your conscious possession of the love of Christ. Has the world helped me to lay hold on Christ? Then I have conquered it. Has the world loosened my grasp upon Him? Then it has conquered me. Note, then, further, that this abundant victory depends on how we deal with the changes of our outward lives, our sorrows or our joys. The set of your sails, and the firmness of your grasp upon the tiller, determine whether the wind shall carry you to the haven or shall blow you out, a wandering waif, upon a shoreless and melancholy sea. The worst of all afflictions is a wasted affliction, and they are all wasted unless they teach us more of the reality and the blessedness of the love of Jesus Christ.
III. The love which makes us conquerors. The apostle, with a wonderful instinctive sense of fitness, names Christ here by a name congruous to the thoughts which occupy his mind, when he speaks of Him that loved us. His question has been, Can anything separate us from the love of Christ? And his answer is, So far from that being the case, that very love, by occasion of sorrows and afflictions, tightens its grasp upon us, and, by the communication of itself to us, makes us more than conquerors. This great love of Jesus Christ, from which nothing can separate us, will use the very things that seem to threaten our separation as a means of coming nearer to us in its depth and in its preciousness. The apostle says, Him who loved us, and the words in the original distinctly point to some one fact as being the great instance of love. That is to say they point to His death. And so we may say Christs love helps to conquer because in His death He interprets for us all possible sorrows. The Cross is the key to all tribulation, and declares it to be a token and an instrument of an unchanging love. Further, that great love of Christ helps us to conquer, because in His sufferings and death He becomes the companion of all the weary. The rough, dark, lonely road changes its look when we see His footprints there, not without specks of blood in them, where the thorns tore His feet. And, lastly, this dying lover of our souls communicates to us all, if we will, the strength whereby we may coerce all outward things into being helps to the fuller participation of His perfect love. (A. Maclaren, D.D.)
Conquerors through Christ
There are two points of consideration before us--
I. The things in which we are victorious. In all these things, says the apostle. We may classify these--
1. The condemning power of the law and sin. Who is He that condemneth? The Christian never loses sight of the fact that he has been, and still is, a guilty sinner. The power of sin to visit judgment through the law is a fearful thing to an unforgiven sinner; but before it all, the believer can stand in serene triumph and feel himself safe. Looking up, around, and beneath, he can see none that can enforce condemnation against him. The law cannot--for its honour and claims have been satisfied in atoning blood.
2. Further, a whole group of trials is found in the hindering powers of the world and Satan. Look at the array of troubles of which the apostle speaks--Tribulations, distress, persecution, etc. In our day, the form and manner of opposition, temptation and danger are somewhat different, but they are just as real and almost as numerous. Till Satan and the world cease to be what they are, our Christian life must lie through temptations, opposing powers, influences that imperil and destroy. The forces of sin sometimes charge on men in violent assault--a fierce assailment in an open crisis battle, for supremacy in the soul. We all have our moral Sedans, where we are put to the alternative of winning or losing the crown of Christian character. Such times of mighty peril are more frequent than most persons suspect, for the battles are not always open in their meaning. Men are on trial for life or death, often, when they know it not. It is often a decisive battle between the powers of darkness and light for the soul of the young, when they are to decide their calling in life, between a business safe and pure, and one full of temptation. Sometimes the temptation is insidious and gradual in its approaches and power. Fabius mode of warfare was that of ever hanging about his enemy and weakening him little by little, inflicting small but continual injuries. This is the commonest way of the warfare of the world and sin on the Christian. A continual pricking of a polished surface with needle-points will ultimately tarnish it. A continual dropping will wear away the solid rock; and the most perilous trials of Christians may be suffered from quiet but continuous touches of evil from the world and sin. It may be an incipient development of a worldly spirit, filling your heart with the love of money and moving you nearer and nearer to the edge of some moral precipice. It may be the growth of a temper of neglect for known duty, till the spirit of duty is eaten all out of your heart, or the plants of grace are all smothered to feebleness or death. So it is, too, as to afflictions, more generally so-called--the things that form distresses to be borne rather than temptations to sin. In the trials of the apostle, there was a great fight of afflictions. And it is while burdened with trouble and struggling against sorrows that every believer has his victory to reach. But here again, in view of it all, God throws down on you the light and cheer of this experience of the apostle: In all these things we are more than conquerors.
II. How we are made conquerors. This is a point of grand importance to us. As the Israelites, imperilled by Pharaohs pursuing army, were concerned to see how to go forward in safety, we are concerned to know the way to overcome the oppositions and trials in our onward Christian way. How conquerors? Through Him that hath loved us.
1. Not, therefore, in and of ourselves. Dependence on self alone is a broken reed that here plunges into defeat. However much extolled, and really grand a thing self-reliance is, in some relations in this spiritual work it is inadequate. The fetters of depravity and condemning sin are too strong for human strength alone to wrest off. The power of temptation is too mighty to be withstood without aid.
2. But through Christ that loved us, we are conquerors. It is surely only by Him that we triumph against the threatening curse of sin, in the matter of justification. And in the matter of temptation and trials, our victory is in Him. With Christ on our side, they are more that are for us than they that are against us. It is often surprising how Christ and Christs love give strength to the feeble. There were giants in those days. In a better sense, there are giants in all days--Christians made mightier than all the powers of evil. They have locks of triumphant strength against all the Philistines of temptation, sin, and harassment that may be upon them.
3. But though through Christ, it is not without our own effort. Christ keeps us by enabling us to keep ourselves. We are strong, not effortless, but by and in effort. Every iota of the might by which the victory is given us must run along spiritual nerves within us--must come into our hearts, go into the will, and flow out into the hands and feet of personal activity and steadfastness. Divine strength is always ready for the needy Christian, but he must use it. How do you overcome the perilous temptation of love of the world? It is by so receiving the grace of Christ as to crucify your affection for its follies and sins. How do Christians in general prove safe against the incessant temptations to evil about them? It is by storing their own minds and hearts with the light, truth, counsel, and quickening force of Gods Word. All evils will be powerless against you, if, like the tree that grows strong against storms by receiving the strength that comes up from every root, pours through every vein into every branch, and hardens into firmness and might by the air and sunbeams, you take up into the fibre and nerve of your own Christian life the invigorating influence of all Gods grace furnished you, and you grow strong and compact as a tree of righteousness, Christ living and acting in you.
4. But observe--the assurance goes further, With beautiful force it says: We are more than conquerors. Our victories, in which we remain safe, are a means of increasing our faith, our love, our power. Trials are turned into occasions of development and power. The mind brightens by its use. The heart is enriched by the exercise of its virtues. Idleness and ease enfeeble. The Church is often too indolent and peaceful for its proper development and high glory. There is nothing like war to make soldiers. It is by wrestling with the angels of trial, affliction, and labour, that you become a prince with God. How blessed is the Christian--the victory given him here, the crown hereafter. It is for us to know whether we are conquering, daily--defeating Satan, subduing sin, proving successful in doing good, in the face of everything that opposes. (M. Valentine, D.D.)
More than conqueror
Ignatius, who was martyred in the year 107, said, Let fire and the cross, let wild beasts, let all the malice of the devil come upon me; only may I enjoy Jesus Christ. It is better for me to die for Christ, than to reign over the ends of the earth. Stand firm, he added, as an anvil when it is beaten upon. It is part of a brave combatant to be wounded, and yet to overcome. In losing life he found it.
The Christian more than conqueror through Christ
It is a rough sort of life that most resolute Christians lead. I do not speak of commonplace professors, many of whom shuffle through easily enough. But those, of whom the apostle himself was one, have a severe and sifting ordeal to pass. As it is written, For Thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. It was thus that Immanuel Himself was treated. It was a doomed life He led on earth. The rudest language and the harshest treatment were reckoned good enough for Him. It is enough for the servant to be as his Lord. But just as Jesus conquered it all, so each disciple will overcome it too. Like the little boat that follows in the great ships wake, which receives the blast somewhat abated by the statelier form ahead, but in other respects backs the same billows and plunges down into the same sea-trough; so the believer follows the Forerunner, encountering in mitigated fury the head-wind which opposed His course, but riding the same billows of tribulation, distress, and peril which He breasted on His path to glory. But, like the cord which connects the little boat and the great ship together, there is that which joins the Saviour and the believing soul to one another. Tribulation, distress, persecution cannot sever them, and in the same haven of security, the same sea of glass, where the mightier sail is already furled, and Immanuels own anchor is already dropped, the fragile little bark which follows will soon come to its quiet mooring, more than conqueror through Him who went before it. (J. Hamilton, D.D.)
The Christian conqueror
I. Christians are conquerors.
1. At their first conversion, when through grace they obtain deliverance from the power of darkness and unbelief.
2. When grace gains the ascendancy, and particular corruptions are weakened and subdued. Growing Christians are going on conquering and to conquer. Partial advantages give assurance of a final conquest.
3. At a throne of grace. God fulfils their requests, and often exceeds them, as He did those of Solomon.
4. Over the afflictions and trials of the present life, and such as they are called especially to endure for Christs sake.
5. In a dying hour. The victory then obtained is great and glorious, complete and everlasting (1Co_15:54-57).
II. Christians are more than conquerors.
1. They conquer those enemies which none besides can conquer, and which to all others would be invincible. They overcome those powers of darkness which have overcome the world. Those who have obtained the greatest victories are often the slaves of the basest lusts. But the Christian triumphs over himself; and while he is waging war with the corruptions that are in the world, he is no less successful in his opposition to that depravity which reigns within. They conquer that by which all are conquered, even death; thus they lead captivity captive.
2. The means by which they overcome are such as enhance the glory of their conquests. When kings go forth to battle, they muster the host, calculate their numbers, and oppose force to force. But in the Christian warfare, it is not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit, saith the Lord of hosts. I can do all things, said Paul, through Christ who strengtheneth me (Psa_18:29; Isa_30:1; 1Co_12:9-10; Rev_12:11).
3. The manner in which they overcome makes them more than conquerors. They are sure of success beforehand, which no other combatants are. They also conquer in a little time. The sound of an alarm is quickly followed by the sound of triumph. The conflict may continue as long as life; but what is our life? It is but a vapour. Besides, continued resistance will weaken the hands of our enemies and strengthen ours, so that the conquest shall be easy, and obtained with little loss. A victory is often dearly purchased; but the Christian loses nothing that is worth retaining; he gains by every battle.
4. The victory obtained is over and above measure, as the word signifies. The victory is exceedingly great and glorious, far beyond what is accomplished in any other warfare. It is not like a drawn battle, in which both sides may claim the advantage; the defeat is total, and the enemy is swallowed up in victory. We must remember, however, that all our successes are owing to Him that hath loved us (Psa_41:4; 2Ti_4:7; 1Jn_4:4).
Improvement.
1. Let not believers be dismayed at any opposition they may meet with (Psa_27:1-3).
2. The most successful Christian should take heed of pride and self-sufficiency. Let him say with the apostle, Not I, but Christ who dwelleth in me. (B. Beddome, M.A.)
The gain of the Christian conqueror
To be simply a conqueror is barely to overcome an enemy--to be more than conqueror is to derive absolute gain from the contest. Those Roman Christians were engaged in a struggle so severe that it would often seem doubtful to them whether they could be conquerors at all. They saw corruption reigning unbridled in power, and regal in success, while they were subject to hunger, nakedness, and peril. It is a difficult thing to maintain firm belief in a truth when all circumstances seem to oppose it, and proclaim it untrue. And still more, their danger through the deepening hatred of the populace must have tempted them, daily, to save themselves by denying their Lord. Amid the long, hard struggle they would doubtless think it a great achievement if they could only hold fast till the close, and barely overcoming, enter heaven. Paul tells them they would do more. That phrase, more than conquerors, etc., was a power to nerve those Roman men to stand fast in the evil day, until death found them steadfast still. But although the peculiar energy of the troubles of that day must have clothed these words with marvellous force, they still present a truth which every Christian needs to learn. For every man has his own temptation to overcome, and his own battle to fight, which no other can fight for him. But, if we conquer, it is better for us to have fought a hard fight, than to have been without one; our struggles become our possessions, crowning us with glory. Our subject becomes--the gain of the Christian conqueror.
I. Its nature. More than conquerors. But at the outset we must guard against a perversion of the truth. It is not true to say that by every struggle a man becomes better than if he had had no struggle, for if he allow himself consciously to slide into sin and then afterwards resist it, he is not nobler for that resistance than if he had not sinned at all. It has been said that a mans sins are aids to progress, because by falling under temptation and then overcoming it he is stronger than if he had never fallen. We are told that young men must be young men; that by a few outbursts of wild immoral life at first, they give vent to the fierce impulses of evil--which must come forth--and then settle down into a calmer and stronger manhood. Now, every form of that doctrine which makes sin a culture is false, and utterly different from Pauls assertion. Every temptation that conquers us blinds that fine spiritual preception by which we distinguish the right from the wrong. Every sin leaves a ghastly scar on the immortal soul that impedes it from soaring upwards to God. Paul is speaking of temptations resisted; and he affirms that he who conquers thus is greater than if he had never been tried. Let us proceed now to see how this is so--Through Him that loved us.
1. Every conquered temptation deepens our love to Christ, and thus we are more than conquerors. We come here on the track of that great law, that the trial of principle is its true strengthening. Just as the virtue that stands temptation becomes stronger than the frail thing that has never been tested, so the love of Christ ripens to its manhood through temptations, and therefore our temptations become our possessions, and we are more than conquerors … . But to show this clearly, note that all great emotions render impediments aids to their own growth. Passion catches fire by antagonisms. Men speak of the power of circumstances to hinder a Christian life; of course they have a power, but it is none the less true that a strong love makes the most adverse circumstances the grandest aid to its own progress. Thus, the man of passionate temperament wrestles down the fiery impulse of a great passion, and when the battle-storm is over, he finds in his heart a deep, calm love, which renders the next conquest easier--therefore he is more than conqueror. The lonely student in his chamber fights through the midnight hours with a subtle doubt which is driving him to unbelief, but when the victory is won, his faith is all the deeper for the struggle, and that struggle is henceforth a possession, rendering him more than conqueror.
2. The love of Christ to us is a pledge that our conquests will become our gains. Paul evidently had this thought when he said, Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, etc. The living Christ is watching the temptation, and He will take care that its issue is a greater glory than that which could have come from a life of perpetual repose. We may see, in fact, how this is so. Temptations enlarge our capacity of sympathy with the Saviour. In conflict, under slander, in sorrow, we get nearer to the Christ of the wilderness, the judgment-hall, and the garden; and that deeper sympathy is its own great reward God will open hereafter the marvellous book of the human soul, and show how each struggle left its eternal inscription of glory there.
II. Its attainment. How shall we know that we are becoming more than conquerors? When the love of Christ is--
1. The strongest power in life.
2. A progressive power. (E. L. Hull, B.A.)
The Christian conquest
We begin with a Christians success. First, to speak of the positive supposition, We are conquerors. But whom or what is a Christian conqueror of? First, he is a conqueror even of God Himself. First, from the reflection of their graces, and that loveliness which is put upon their purposes. Secondly, the children of God they do conquer Him by the efficacy of their prayers. Prayer, it is wonderful victorious. This victory in prevailing with God, it is the ground and foundation of all other victories besides. They which can conquer Him, they may conquer everything else. Secondly, they are their own conquerors; they conquer and overcome themselves. He that cannot conquer his affections will never conquer his afflictions; whereas he that can do that, he will find these by little and little yielding unto him. Take a carnal man, and he is a captive to every temptation: he is like a city without wails, which is easily taken; but a good Christian he is otherwise affected. But thirdly (which is most agreeable to the scope of the text), in regard of all their enemies. First, the children of God are conquerors over their personal enemies; and in particular evil men, they have a great deal the better of them. First, a Christian conquers his enemies by doing of that which is good. Secondly, by suffering of that which is evil; a Christian conquers thus also. Thus the martyrs in ancient times overcame their very tormentors by their patience and constancy. A Christian, he is above all the evils which in this world are incident unto him; and that in three respects especially. First, by prevention of them. Secondly, by cheerfulness under them. And thirdly, by profiting by them. And so much may suffice to have spoken of the success of a Christian, as it is here laid down in the first notion and proposal of it, namely, in its positive supposition, and that is, We are conquerors. The second is in its comparative amplification, we are so, and somewhat besides--we are conquerors, yea, more than conquerors. It is a very emphatical word, and such as our English language does not easily reach to--over-overcome. First, as to the thing itself, being Christians, we are more than conquerors here, and that again in two particulars. First, as to the disabling of our enemies. A man may conquer his enemy for the present, but yet he may recover again. All the enemies of a Christian shall be at last perfectly subdued unto him, and so as they shall not be able any more to rise up against him. Secondly, We are more than conquerors, so far forth as we hereby benefit ourselves. A Christian does not only destroy his enemy, but he does likewise divide the spoil. Now secondly, are we so likewise as to the manners of the victory, and that in sundry circumstances in which it may be made good unto us. First, we do more than conquer, because we conquer with a little strength. They conquer many times by very weak and feeble means. It is all one with God to conquer by many or few. Secondly, they do more than conquer, because they conquer in a little time. Thirdly, they do more than conquer, because they conquer with a little loss. Fourthly, they do more than conquer, because they conquer where they do not fight. Stand still, says Moses to the Israelites, and ye shall see the salvation of the Lord. Lastly, Gods servants do more than conquer, because they conquer when they are conquered themselves. The consideration of this point may be thus far useful to us, namely, as to show us the dignity and excellency of all true Christians and believers. The world, for the most part, looks upon Gods children as a contemptible generation, as those who of all others are the most easily conquered and overcome. The second is the account or ground of this success unto him, that is laid down in these words, Through Him that loved us. First, to take notice of his affection, in his great care for the shunning of pride and ostentation, and vainglory in himself, lie had said in the words before of himself, and the rest of believers, That in all these things we are more than conquerors. This was a big and great word, and it might seem to carry a price of too much self-confidence in it. Now, therefore, does he here seasonably correct it, and qualify it, Through Him that loved us. So, likewise, Php_4:13, a place much like to this at present, there he says, He can do all things. He can want and abound, and everything; well, but how? Through Christ that strengthens me. Still he is careful of this, not to give way to a spirit of presumption. First, it is a thing which is easy, if men do not the better look to themselves. But then secondly, it is again very dangerous, and it is that which the children of God smart for, where they are guilty of it. Pride and presumption in assurance is the next way to lose assurance. Now in the next place we may take notice of his expression, in the substance of the words themselves, Through Him that loved us. Through Him that loved us! Who is that? namely, Jesus Christ. And there are two things again which are here considerable of us. First, for the description of Christ. It is by this periphrasis, of Him that loved us, as that indeed whereby He is best of all known unto us; and as if there were none that loved us but He alone. Who loved me, and gave Himself for me (Gal_2:20). Who loved us and washed us in His blood (Rev_1:5). Christ loved His Church and gave Himself for it, etc. (Eph_5:25). This love of Christ unto us, it was manifested in sundry particulars; that wherein it first showed and discovered itself unto us, was in the business of His incarnation, and taking of our nature upon Him. Especially if we shall further consider upon what terms, and in what circumstances He took it. And so the acts of His mediatorship, which were consequent and dependent hereupon; they were the expressions of the same love. There are two reasons especially why he makes use of this expression in the text, rather than of any other besides. First, it was most comprehensive; when he said, He that loved us, he said in effect everything else. He that was born for us, that died for us, that redeemed us, that saved us; all is comprehended in Him that loved us, because that all these things were the effects of His love. Secondly, as it was the most comprehensive expression, it was also the most proper expression, and pertinent to the business in hand; for he had made mention before of afflictions and persecutions, and such things as those as unable to separate believers from the love of Christ. The second is the account, or cause, of victory to a Christian, and that is through the help of this Person thus described. Now there are three ways especially whereby Christ does accomplish this victory for us, and help us to be partakers of it. First, I say, in that the Spirit of Christ works the graces and abilities themselves. There are divers graces of this nature; as to instance in one or two of them. First, the grace of faith, that is a conquering grace (1Jn_5:4). Secondly, another grace is self-denial; that is another victorious accomplishment. The best way for any man to get victory over his afflictions, is by a restrained affection to his comforts. Thirdly, the grace of humility. As there is nothing which is nearer ruin than pride, so there is nothing which is nearer victory than humility. God Himself resists the proud, pitches battle against them; but He gives grace to the humble, and success with it. Lastly, the grace of patience. This grapples with the greatest evils. Now further, He does also upon occasion actuate those graces in us; and thus He helps us to conquer by His power. Secondly, as by His Spirit, so by His example (1Pe_2:21). Thirdly, by His Word. In this Christ goes forth conquering and to conquer. It is His chariot of triumph (2Co_2:14). Ye are strong, and the Word of God abides in you (1Jn_2:14). One thing more, and so I have done: Through Him that loved us. These words may be taken not only simply, but reflexively, and by way of reduplication; as intimating unto us whence it is that Christ does enable us to be such conquerors, and that is from His unspeakable love. It is from Him that loved us; and from Him so far forth as He loved us. When it is said here from His love; this does not exclude His power, but supposes, and it takes it in; therefore as in this place it is said, Through Christ that loves us. So again in another place it is said, Through Christ that strengthens us; because indeed they are both concomitant. There is nothing whatsoever we enjoy, if we be true believers, but we enjoy it as a fruit of Christs love. It is from the love of Christ that He afflicts us, and it is from the love of Christ also that He strengthens us and enables us to endure affliction. It is not from common providence, but from special favour; it is not from the power of nature, but from the privileges and prerogatives of grace. (Thomas Horton, D.D.)
Christian heroes
Conquerors, although victorious, are often all but defeated. The battle of Waterloo was won by a hairs breadth. Napoleon said, on the morning of the day of Waterloo, We have ninety out of a hundred chances. The conquering army had nothing to spare. The believer in Christ has many foes and fiercer to war against, but he has no doubt as to the result; and when the battle is over he has a surplus of force by which he could conquer still worse and more numerous enemies. He is more than a conqueror. God is with him, and he cannot fail. His last enemy is death, to which, as he looks it in the face, he triumphantly exclaims, O death, where is thy sting? Thanks be unto God which giveth me the victory!
Through trials to victory:--When Garibaldi was thrown into prison he said, Let fifty Garibaldis be thrown into prison, but let Rome be free. This spirit set Italy on fire. When he went before a crowd of young men to appeal for recruits, they asked what he had to offer as inducements. The old man replied, Poverty, hardship, battles, wounds, and--victory. They caught his enthusiasm, threw their hats into the air, and enlisted on the spot.
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
B. W. Johnson1891 · Public DomainOn vv35–3935. Who shall separate us from the love of…
35. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Can anything? Can the sufferings of the Christian calling in a time of persecution, such as the prophet described and the early Christians suffered?
B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.
William B. Godbey1900 · Public DomainOn vv35–3835. “Who shall separate us from the love of…
35. “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or difficulty, or persecution, or famine, or peril, or sword?” The answer is clearly in the negative, as two hundred millions of martyrs singing their death song in the fire have abundantly attested.
William B. Godbey, Commentary on the New Testament (1896–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Alexander MacLaren1905 · Public DomainOn vv37–38
Romans
MORE THAN CONQUERORS
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Rom 8:37.
In order to understand and feel the full force of this triumphant saying of the Apostle, we must observe that it is a negative answer to the preceding questions, ‘Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?’ A heterogeneous mass the Apostle here brigades together as an antagonistic army. They are alike in nothing except that they are all evils. There is no attempt at an exhaustive enumeration, or at classification. He clashes down, as it were, a miscellaneous mass of evil things, and then triumphs over them, and all the genus to which they belong, as being utterly impotent to drag men away from Jesus Christ. To ask the question is to answer it, but the form of the answer is worth notice. Instead of directly replying, ‘No! no such powerless things as these can separate us from the love of Christ,’ he says, ‘No! In all these things, whilst weltering amongst them, whilst ringed round about by them, as by encircling enemies, “we are more than conquerors.”‘ Thereby, he suggests that there is something needing to be done by us, in order that the foes may not exercise their natural effect. And so, taking the words of my text in connection with that to which they are an answer, we have three things-the impotent enemies of love; the abundant victory of love; ‘We are more than conquerors’; and the love that makes us victorious. Let us look then at these three things briefly.
I. First of all, the impotent enemies of love.
There is contempt in the careless massing together of the foes which the Apostle enumerates. He begins with the widest word that covers everything-’affliction.’ Then he specifies various forms of it-’distress,’ straitening, as the word might be rendered, then he comes to evils inflicted for Christ’s sake by hostile men-’persecution,’ then he names purely physical evils, ‘hunger’ and ‘nakedness,’ then he harks back again to man’s antagonism, ‘peril,’ and ‘sword.’ And thus carelessly, and without an effort at logical order, he throws together, as specimens of their class, these salient points, as it were, and crests of the great sea, whose billows threaten to roll over us; and he laughs at them all, as impotent and nought, when compared with the love of Christ, which shields us from them all.
Now it must be noticed that here, in his triumphant question, the Apostle means not our love to Christ but His to us; and not even our sense of that love, but the fact itself. And his question is just this:-Is there any evil in the world that can make Christ stop loving a man that cleaves to Him? And, as I said, to ask the question is to answer it. The two things belong to two different regions. They have nothing in common. The one moves amongst the low levels of earth; the other dwells up amidst the abysses of eternity, and to suppose that anything that assails and afflicts us here has any effect in making that great heart cease to love us is to fancy that the mists can quench the sunlight, is to suppose that that which lies down low in the earth can rise to poison and to darken the heavens.
There is no need, in order to rise to the full height of the Christian contempt for calamity, to deny any of its terrible power. These things can separate us from much. They can separate us from joy, from hope, from almost all that makes life desirable. They can strip us to the very quick, but the quick they cannot touch. The frost comes and kills the flowers, browns the leaves, cuts off the stems, binds the sweet music of the flowing rivers in silent chains, casts mists and darkness over the face of the solitary grey world, but it does not touch the life that is in the root.
And so all these outward sorrows that have power over the whole of the outward life, and can slay joy and all but stifle hope, and can ban men into irrevocable darkness and unalleviated solitude, they do not touch in the smallest degree the secret bond that binds the heart to Jesus, nor in any measure affect the flow of His love to us. Therefore we may front them and smile at them and say:
‘Do as thou wilt, devouring time,
With this wide world, and all its fading sweets’;
‘my flesh and my heart faileth, but God is the strength of my heart, and my portion for ever.’
You need not be very much afraid of anything being taken from you as long as Christ is left you. You will not be altogether hopeless so long as Christ, who is our hope, still speaks His faithful promises to you, nor will the world be lonely and dark to them who feel that they are lapt in the sweet and all-pervading consciousness of the changeless love of the heart of Christ. ‘Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution?’-in any of these things, ‘we are more than conquerors through Him that loved us.’ Brethren, that is the Christian way of looking at all externals, not only at the dark and the sorrowful, but at the bright and the gladsome. If the withdrawal of external blessings does not touch the central sanctities and sweetness of a life in communion with Jesus, the bestowal of external blessedness does not much brighten or gladden it. We can face the withdrawal of them all, we need not covet the possession of them all, for we have all in Christ; and the world without His love contributes less to our blessedness and our peace than the absence of all its joys with His love does. So let us feel that earth, in its givings and in its withholdings, is equally impotent to touch the one thing that we need, the conscious possession of the love of Christ.
All these foes, as I have said, have no power over the fact of Christ’s love to us, but they have power, and a very terrible power, over our consciousness of that love; and we may so kick against the pricks as to lose, in the pain of our sorrows, the assurance of His presence, or be so fascinated by the false and vulgar sweetnesses and promises of the world as, in the eagerness of our chase after them, to lose our sense of the all-sufficing certitude of His love. Tribulation does not strip us of His love, but tribulation may so darken our perceptions that we cannot see the sun. Joys need not rob us of His heart, but joys may so fill ours, as that there shall be no longing for His presence within us. Therefore let us not exaggerate the impotence of these foes, but feel that there are real dangers, as in the sorrows so in the blessings of our outward life, and that the evil to be dreaded is that outward things, whether in their bright or in their dark aspects, may come between us and the home of our hearts, the love of the loving Christ.
II. So then, note next, the abundant victory of love.
Mark how the Apostle, in his lofty and enthusiastic way, is not content here with simply saying that he and his fellows conquer. It would be a poor thing, he seems to think, if the balance barely inclined to our side, if the victory were but just won by a hair’s breadth and triumph were snatched, as it were, out of the very jaws of defeat. There must be something more than that to correspond to the power of the victorious Christ that is in us. And so, he says, we very abundantly conquer; we not only hinder these things which he has been enumerating from doing that which it is their aim apparently to do, but we actually convert them into helpers or allies. The ‘more than conquerors’ seems to mean, if there is any definite idea to be attached to it, the conversion of the enemy conquered into a friend and a helper. The American Indians had a superstition that every foe tomahawked sent fresh strength into the warrior’s arm. And so all afflictions and trials rightly borne, and therefore overcome, make a man stronger, and bring him nearer to Jesus Christ.
Note then, further, that not only is this victory more than bare victory, being the conversion of the enemy into allies, but that it is a victory which is won even whilst we are in the midst of the strife. It is not that we shall be conquerors in some far-off heaven, when the noise of battle has ceased and they hang the trumpet in the hall, but it is here now, in the hand-to-hand and foot-to-foot death-grapple that we do overcome. No ultimate victory, in some far-off and blessed heaven, will be ours unless moment by moment, here, to-day,’ we are more than conquerors through Him that loved us.’
So, then, about this abundant victory there are these things to say:-You conquer the world only, then, when you make it contribute to your conscious possession of the love of Christ. That is the real victory, the only real victory in life. Men talk about overcoming here on earth, and they mean thereby the accomplishment of their designs. A man has ‘victory,’ as it is phrased, in the world’s strife, when he secures for himself the world’s goods at which he has aimed, but that is not the Christian idea of the conquest of calamity. Everything that makes me feel more thrillingly in my inmost heart the verity and the sweetness of the love of Jesus Christ as my very own, is conquered by me and compelled to subserve my highest good, and everything which slips a film between me and Him, which obscures the light of His face to me, which makes me less desirous of, and less sure of, and less happy in, and less satisfied with, His love, is an enemy that has conquered me. And all these evils as the world calls them, and as our bleeding hearts have often felt them to be, are converted into allies and friends when they drive us to Christ, and keep us close to Him, in the conscious possession of His sweet and changeless love. That is the victory, and the only victory. Has the world helped me to lay hold of Christ? Then I have conquered it. Has the world loosened my grasp upon Him? Then it has conquered me.
Note then, further, that this abundant victory depends on how we deal with the changes of our outward lives, our sorrows or our joys. There is nothing, per se, salutary in affliction, there is nothing, per se, antagonistic to Christian faith in it either. No man is made better by his sorrows, no man need be made worse by them. That depends upon how we take the things which come storming against us. The set of your sails, and the firmness of your grasp upon the tiller, determine whether the wind shall carry you to the haven or shall blow you out, a wandering waif, upon a shoreless and melancholy sea. There are some of you that have been blown away from your moorings by sorrow. There are some professing Christians who have been hindered in their work, and had their peace and their faith shattered all but irrevocably, because they have not accepted, in the spirit in which they were sent, the trials that have come for their good. The worst of all afflictions is a wasted affliction, and they are all wasted unless they teach us more of the reality and the blessedness of the love of Jesus Christ.
III. Lastly, notice the love which makes us conquerors.
The Apostle, with a wonderful instinctive sense of fitness, names Christ here by a name congruous to the thoughts which occupy his mind, when he speaks of Him that loved us. His question has been, Can anything separate us from the love of Christ? And his answer is, So far from that being the case, that very love, by occasion of sorrows and afflictions, tightens its grasp upon us, and, by the communication of itself to us, makes us more than conquerors. This great love of Jesus Christ, from which nothing can separate us, will use the very things that seem to threaten our separation as a means of coming nearer to us in its depth and in its preciousness.
The Apostle says ‘Him that loved us,’ and the words in the original distinctly point to some one fact as being the great instance of love. That is to say they point to His death. And so we may say Christ’s love helps us to conquer because in His death He interprets for us all possible sorrows. If it be true that love to each of us nailed Him there, then nothing that can come to us but must be a love-token, and a fruit of that same love. The Cross is the key to all tribulation, and shows it to be a token and an instrument of an unchanging love.
Further, that great love of Christ helps us to conquer, because in His sufferings and death He becomes the Companion of all the weary. The rough, dark, lonely road changes its look when we see His footprints there, not without specks of blood in them, where the thorns tore His feet. We conquer our afflictions if we recognise that ‘in all our afflictions He was afflicted,’ and that Himself has drunk to its bitterest dregs the cup which He commends to our lips. He has left a kiss upon its margin, and we need not shrink when He holds it out to us and says ‘Drink ye all of it.’ That one thought of the companionship of the Christ in our sorrows makes us more than conquerors.
And lastly, this dying Lover of our souls communicates to us all, if we will, the strength whereby we may coerce all outward things into being helps to the fuller participation of His perfect love. Our sorrows and all the other distracting externals do seek to drag us away from Him. Is all that happens in counteraction to that pull of the world, that we tighten our grasp upon Him, and will not let Him go; as some poor wretch might the horns of the altar that did not respond to his grasp? Nay what we lay hold of is no dead thing, but a living hand, and it grasps us more tightly than we can ever grasp it. So because He holds us, and not because we hold Him, we shall not be dragged away, by anything outside of our own weak and wavering souls, and all these embattled foes may come against us, they may shear off everything else, they cannot sever Christ from us unless we ourselves throw Him away. ‘In this thou shalt conquer.’ ‘They overcame by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of His testimony.’
Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. W. McGarvey1914 · Public DomainOn vv35–39Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?…
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or anguish, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? [The thought of Rom_8:28 ; which has not been out of the apostle's mind since he introduced it, here comes once more squarely to the front. Shall any of the hardships of our present life so work evil as to cause Christ to change his present feeling toward us, or his future purpose to justify us? Can we who know his love ask such a question? Can anything in the whole catalogue of hardships work such results? Though in our day the sufferings may vary somewhat from the items given by the apostle, yet they raise the same doubts--produce in us the same effects. It is natural to man to look upon the sufferings of the Christian life as a contradiction to the scheme of grace. According to our earthly conceptions, a journey which is to end in glorification should continually rise toward it, so that pleasures, joys, honors, etc., should increase daily. When, instead of such a program, we meet with tribulation, anguish, nakedness, etc., it looks to us as if God were leading us the wrong way--the way that would end in degradation and death, rather than glorification and life. The answer to such thoughts is found in this argument of the apostle. God makes any road lead to good and glorification, and especially those roads which seem to run in the opposite direction; so that we may regard those things which appear to argue his hatred and neglect as, on the contrary, the strongest evidences of his love and care. And this, adds the apostle, is no new truth, for it has been the experience of God's people in the past, as the Scripture testifies.]
J. W. McGarvey (with Philip Y. Pendleton), Commentaries on the New Testament (The Fourfold Gospel, 1914; Acts; and the epistles) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
C. I. Scofield1917 · Public DomainOn vv38–39(See Scofield "Heb 1:4").
angels
(See Scofield "Heb 1:4").
The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0On vv35, 37Who will separate us from the love of Christ?
Who will separate us from the love of Christ?
Paul uses this question to teach that nothing can separate us from the love of Christ. AT: "No one will ever separate us from the love of Christ!" or "Nothing will ever separate us from the love of Christ!" (See: Rhetorical Question)
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Tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or hunger, or nakedness, or danger, or sword?
The words "shall separate us from the love of Christ" are understood from the previous question. AT: "Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or hunger, or nakedness, or danger, or sword separate us from the love of Christ?"(See: Ellipsis)
Tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or hunger, or nakedness, or danger, or sword?
Paul uses this question to emphasize that even these things cannot separate us from the love of Christ. AT: "Even tribulation, distress, persecution, hunger, nakedness, danger, and sword cannot separate us from the love of Christ." (See: Rhetorical Question)
Tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or hunger, or nakedness, or danger, or sword?
The abstract nouns can be expressed with verb phrases. Here "sword" is a metonym that represents being killed violently. AT: "Even if people cause us trouble, hurt us, take away our clothes and food, or kill us, they cannot separate us from the love of Christ." (See: Abstract Nouns and Metonymy)
Tribulation, or distress
These words both mean the same thing. (See: Doublet)
For your benefit
Here "your" is singular and refers to God. AT: "For you" (See: Forms of You)
we are killed all day long
Here "we" refers to the one who wrote this part of Scripture, but not his audience, who was God. The phrase "all day long" is an exaggeration to emphasize how much danger they are in. Paul uses this part of Scripture to show that all who belong to God should expect difficult times. This can be translated in an active form. AT: "our enemies continually seek to kill us" (See: Inclusive "We" and Hyperbole and Generalization and Active or Passive)
We were considered as sheep for the slaughter
Here Paul compares to livestock those whom people kill because they are loyal to God. You can translate this in an active form. AT: "Our lives have no more value to them than the sheep they kill" (See: Simile and Active or Passive)
John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain On vv35–39 35. Who shall separate us, etc. The conviction of…
35. Who shall separate us, etc. The conviction of safety is now more widely extended, even to lower things; for he who is persuaded of God’s kindness towards him, is able to stand firm in the heaviest afflictions. These usually harass men in no small degree, and for various reasons, — because they interpret them as tokens of God’s wrath, or think themselves to be forsaken by God, or see no end to them, or neglect to meditate on a better life, or for other similar reasons; but when the mind is purged from such mistakes, it becomes calm, and quietly rests. But the import of the words is, — That whatever happens, we ought to stand firm in this faith, — that God, who once in his love embraced us, never ceases to care for us. For he does not simply say that there is nothing which can tear God away from his love to us; but he means, that the knowledge and lively sense of the love which he testifies to us is so vigorous in our hearts, that it always shines in the darkness of afflictions: for as clouds, though they obscure the clear brightness of the sun, do not yet wholly deprive us of its light; so God, in adversities, sends forth through the darkness the rays of his favor, lest temptations should overwhelm us with despair; nay, our faith, supported by God’s promises as by wings, makes its way upward to heaven through all the intervening obstacles. It is indeed true, that adversities are tokens of God’s wrath, when viewed in themselves; but when pardon and reconciliation precede, we ought to be assured that God, though he chastises us, yet never forgets his mercy: he indeed thus reminds us of what we have deserved; but he no less testifies, that our salvation is an object of his care, while he leads us to repentance.
But he calls it the love of Christ, and for this reason, — because the Father has in a manner opened his compassions to us in him. As then the love of God is not to be sought out of Christ, Paul rightly directs to him our attention, so that our faith may behold, in the rays of Christ’s favor, the serene countenance of the Father. The meaning is, — that in no adversities ought our confidence to be shaken as to this truth — that when God is propitious, nothing can be adverse to us. Some take this love in a passive sense, for that by which he is loved by us, as though Paul would have us armed with invincible courage but this comment may be easily disproved by the whole tenor of Paul’s reasoning; and Paul himself will presently remove all doubt by defining more clearly what this love is.
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Tribulation, or distress, or persecution? etc. The pronoun masculine which he used at the beginning of the verse, contains a hidden power: for when he might have adopted the neuter gender and said — “What shall separate us?” etc., he preferred ascribing personality to things without life, and for this end, — that he might send forth with us into the contest as many champions as there are of temptations to try our faith.
But these three things have this difference: tribulation includes every kind of trouble or evil; distress is an inward feeling, when difficulties reduce us to such an extremity, so that we know not what course to pursue. Such was the anxiety of Abraham and of Lot, when one was constrained to expose his wife to the danger of prostitution, and the other, his daughters; for being brought to straits and being perplexed, they found no way of escape. Persecution properly denotes the tyrannical violence by which the children of God were undeservedly harassed by the ungodly. Now though Paul denies in 2 Corinthians 4:8, that the children of God are reduced to straits, στενοχωρεῖσθαι, he does not yet disagree with himself; for he does not simply make them to be exempt from anxious solicitude, but he means that they are delivered from it, as also the examples of Abraham and Lot testify.
John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv35, 37 Wherewith Christ loveth us.
Wherewith Christ loveth us.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv35–39 35 Who shall separate us from the love of…
35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?
Ver. 35. Who shall separate us] Who shall separate me? saith the Syriac.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain On vv35–39 Who shall separate us? He continues his triumph: he…
Who shall separate us? He continues his triumph: he does not say what, but who; though he instanceth in things, and not in persons, yet it is expressed personally, because that these things do commonly do us hurt in the improvement of persons, whether of Satan or wicked men, who are instrumental thereunto.
From the love of Christ; understand it either actively, from our love of him; or passively, from his love of us. The latter seems to be chiefly intended;
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Who shall separate us from the love of Christ, or from the sense and manifestation thereof?
Shall tribulation, &c. He makes an enumeration of particular evils, of seven in number; and he begins with the lesser, and rises to the greater; placing them in order, not casually, but by choice. The word tribulation signifies any thing that presseth or pincheth us.
Or distress? The word properly signifies straitness of place, and is transferred from the body to the mind, to point out the anguish or perplexity thereof.
Or persecution; the word properly signifies a driving from place to place; banishment is implied therein, if not chiefly intended: see Mat 10:23.
Or peril; any danger or hazard of life, in any kind whatsoever: see 2Co 11:26.
Or sword; this is put figuratively for death itself, especially violent death.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
William Burkitt 1703 · Public Domain On vv35–38 That is, none shall separate, nothing shall separate the…
That is, none shall separate, nothing shall separate the believer from the love of Christ; either from the love that Christ bears to him, or from that love which he bears unto Christ; no person shall, no condition of life can separate them, neither outward troubles, nor inward distresses, no evils either felt or feared; the apostle defies and despises them all, because neither of them alone, nor all together, can unclasp the arms of divine love, in which believers are safely enfolded.
Learn hence, That no troubles, tribulations or distresses whatsoever, can dissolve the union betwixt Christ and believers, or ever separate them from his love.
William Burkitt's Expository Notes on the New Testament (1700–1703) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv35–39 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?....…
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?.... By "the love of Christ" is not meant the saints' love to Christ, but his love to them; he is indeed the object of their love, and so strong is their love to him, that it can never be destroyed; for though there may be an abatement in the fervour of it, it can never be lost; yet this is never called the love of Christ: besides, the apostle is speaking not of their love to Christ, but of the love of God and Christ to them, throughout the context; and his design is, to strengthen the faith of God's people, and comfort their souls, under their various afflictions: now nothing more effectually serves such purposes, than the love of Christ; and the things here instanced in are such, as are apt to inject doubts and fears, about interest in the love of Christ, and of the love of God in Christ, as it is interpreted in some following verses: moreover, the separation here interrogated is not of Christ from us, but of us from him; whereas was it our love to Christ, which is here meant, it should rather have been put, who shall separate him from us, and not us from the love of Christ? That Christ does love the elect of God, who are the persons here spoken of, is evident from his undertaking for them, espousing their persons, assuming their nature, dying in their room and stead, paying off their debts, and redeeming their persons, by going to prepare a place for them, by interceding for them, by supplying them with all grace, and using them in the most free and familiar manner; which love of his is wonderful, matchless, and inconceivable, special and peculiar, free and undeserved, exceeding affectionate, unchangeable, durable, and for ever. This is the bond of union to Christ; and the union which is made by it is exceeding near and close; it is real; perfect, and indissoluble, nothing can separate from it: not
tribulation; or "affliction", which springs from his love, and is the fruit of it; and notwithstanding that, he rests in his love; this is not taken away, but is often sensibly enjoyed, in the midst of afflictions:
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or distress; whether of body or mind; straitness in the affairs and circumstances of life, or straitness of mind, in the exercise of grace, and discharge of duty; for "though we believe not, yet he abides faithful", Ti2 2:13, to his covenant and promises:
or persecution: from the world; for this is rather an evidence that Christ has loved them chosen and called them, because the world hates them:
or famine: want of the necessaries of life, as food and drink; being exposed to great hunger and thirst, which has sometimes been the lot of the dear children of God:
or nakedness; want of proper clothing, or the use of common apparel; wandering about in sheep skins and goat skins, which has been the case of some, of whom the world was not worthy, and so no proof of separation from the love of Christ:
or peril; dangers from different quarters, by different persons and ways; such as the Apostle Paul had trial of, who was highly in the love of Christ, Co1 11:26;
or sword; that is, death by the sword; which death James the brother of John died, Act 12:13, now, though this may separate the head from the body, and separate soul and body, yet cannot separate from the love of Christ.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On vv35–38 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ…
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ - Toward us? Shall affliction or distress - He proceeds in order, from less troubles to greater: can any of these separate us from his protection in it; and, if he sees good, deliverance from it?
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv35–39 Verse 35. Who shall separate us from the love…
Verse 35. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?] I do think that this question has been generally misunderstood. The apostle is referring to the persecutions and tribulations to which genuine Christians were exposed through their attachment to Christ, and the gracious provision God had made for their support and final salvation. As in this provision God had shown his infinite love to them in providing Jesus Christ as their sin-offering, and Jesus Christ had shown his love in suffering death upon the cross for them; so, here, he speaks of the love of the followers of God to that Christ who had first loved them. Therefore the question is not, Who shall separate the love of Christ from us? or prevent Christ from loving us? but, Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Who or what shall be able to remove our affection from him? And the questions that immediately follow show that this is the sense of the passage; for the tribulation, distress, c., which he enumerates, are things by which they might be affected, but by which Christ could not be affected and, consequently, the question most evidently refers to their love to him who had first loved them, and, while it affords a strong presumption of their perseverance, furnishes a most powerful argument against apostasy.
Shall tribulation?] φλιψις, grievous affliction, or distress of any kind; from φλιβω, to compress, oppress, straiten, c. any thing by which a man is rendered miserable.
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Or distress?] στενοχωρια, a word of nearly the same import with the former, but more intense in its signification. It signifies straitness, being hemmed in on every side, without the possibility of getting out or escaping; from στενος, strait or narrow, and χωρος, a place.
Or persecution?] διωγμος, from διωκω, to pursue, press upon, prosecute, signifies such pursuing as an enemy uses in order to overtake the object of his malice, that he may destroy him.
Or famine?] λιμος, from λειπω, to fail; the total want of bread, and all the necessaries of life.
Or nakedness?] γυμνοτης, being absolutely without clothing; forcibly expressed by the derivation of the word γυιαμοναεχων, having one's limbs only, being totally unclothed.
Or peril?] κινδυνος, a state of extreme and continued danger, perplexing and distressing with grievous forebodings and alarms; derived from κινειταςοδυνας, it excites anguish; because much evil is felt, and much more feared.
Or sword?] μαχαιρα, slaughter; the total destruction of life, and especially beheading, and such like, done by the order of the civil magistrate; for the word is used in this epistle, Ro 13:4, to signify the authority and power which he has of judicially terminating life; i.e. of inflicting capital punishment.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On vv35, 38 Rom 8:35-37. Who shall separate us — By saying…
Rom 8:35-37. Who shall separate us — By saying τις, who, the apostle personifies the things he is going to mention, namely, affliction, &c.; from the love of Christ — Toward us? By this, some understand the love which we bear to Christ. But to separate us from our own love, seems an unusual expression. Even this, however, may be included thus; — What creature or occasion shall cause us to withdraw our love from him, and consequently cause him, in any degree, to withdraw his love from us? Shall tribulation? or affliction, as θλιψις is generally rendered; or distress? —
Στενοχωρια, perplexity, when we know not which way to turn ourselves. The former word, according to Esthius, signifies sickness and other bodily evils; whereas the latter rather means trouble of mind, arising from doubtful and perplexing straits and difficulties. He proceeds in order from less troubles to greater. Can any of these separate us from his protection in the trial, and (if he sees good) deliverance from it? The sword is here put for a violent death. As none can imagine that Christ would love his faithful servants less for enduring such extremities for his sake, the text must of necessity be intended to express the apostle’s confidence, that his love to his people, illustrated already in so glorious a manner, would engage him to support them under all their trials, by vital communications of divine strength. As it is written, For thy sake we are killed all the day — That is, every day, continually: we are accounted — By our enemies, by ourselves; as sheep for the slaughter — The Psalm from which this quotation is taken, is thought by some to have been written during the Babylonish captivity, when the Jews suffered great persecution for their religion: but at other times also the Jews were exposed to a variety of evils from their conquerors, on account of their adherence to the worship and service of the true God. See note on Psa 44:22. Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors — We are not only no losers, but abundant gainers by all these trials. The original expression, υπερνικωμεν, signifies to obtain a great victory. “The victory which the people of God obtain over their persecutors is of a very singular nature. It consists in their patient bearing of all the evils which their persecutors inflict upon them, and that through the assistance of Christ, and in imitation of his example. For by suffering in this manner, they maintain his cause in spite of all opposition, and confound their persecutors.”
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain On vv35–39 Who shall separate us - That is, finally or…
Who shall separate us - That is, finally or entirely separate us. This is a new argument of the apostle, showing his strong confidence in the safety of the Christian.
From the love of Christ - This expression is ambiguous; and may mean either our love to Christ or his love to us. I understand it in the former sense, and suppose it means, “Who shall cause us to cease to love the Saviour?” In other words, the love which Christians have for their Redeemer is so strong, that it will surmount and survive all opposition and all trials. The reason for so understanding the expression is, that it is not conceivable how afflictions, etc. should have any tendency to alienate Christ’s love “from us;” but their supposed tendency to alienate “our love” from him might be very strong. They are endured in his cause. They are caused, in a good degree, by professed attachment to him. The persecutions and trials to which Christians are exposed on account of their professed attachment to him, might be supposed to make them weary of a service that involved so many trials. But no, says the apostle. Our love for him is so strong that we are willing to bear all; and nothing that these foes of our peace can do, can alienate us from him and from his cause. The argument, therefore, is drawn from the strong love of a Christian to his Saviour; and from the assurance that nothing would be able to separate him from that love.
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On the other hand, it is alleged that “the object of the apostle is to assure us, not so immediately of our love to God, as of his love to us, by directing our attention to his predestinating, calling, justifying, and glorifying us, and not sparing his own Son, but delivering him up for us; that in addition to this it contributes more to our consolation, to have our minds fixed upon God’s love to us, than upon our love to him, which is subject to so many failings and infirmities.” Haldane.
Indeed the whole of this passage proceeds, in its triumphing strain, on the ground of what God and Christ have done “for us,” and not on the ground of anything belonging to us. It is therefore improbable, that the apostle, in the midst of such a strain, should introduce the love of the creature to God, as a just reason for such unparalleled confidence. It is more natural to the Christian to triumph in the love of Christ to him, than in any return he can make. He can glory in the strength of the former, while he mourns over the weakness of the latter. As to the objection that afflictions can have no tendency to alienate Christ’s love, these are the “very things” that alienate people from us. There are persons who are called “summer friends” because they desert us in the winter of adversity. But the love of Christ is greatly exalted by the fact, that none of all possible adverse circumstances, of which the apostle enumerates not a few, shall ever change his love.
Shall tribulation - θλίψις thlipsis. Note, Rom 2:9. The word properly refers to pressure from without; affliction arising from external causes. It means, however, not infrequently, trial of any kind.
Or distress - στενοχωρία stenochōria. This word properly means “narrowness of place;” and then, great anxiety and distress of mind, such as arises when a man does not know where to turn himself or what to do for relief. It refers, therefore, to distress or anxiety “of mind,” such as the early Christians were often subject to from their trials and persecutions; 2Co 7:5,” Without were fightings, “within were fears;” see the note at Rom 2:9.
Or persecutions - Note, Mat 5:11. To these the early Christians were constantly exposed.
Or famine - To this they were also exposed as the natural result of being driven from home, and of being often compelled to wander amidst strangers, and in deserts and desolate places.
Or peril - Danger of any kind.
Or sword - The sword of persecution; the danger of their lives to which they were constantly exposed. As all these things happened to them in consequence of their professed attachment to Christ, it might be supposed that they would tend to alienate their minds from him. But the apostle was assured that they had not this power, but that their love to the Saviour was so strong as to overcome all, and to bind them unalterably to his cause in the midst of the deepest trials. The fact is, that the more painful the trials to which they are exposed on his account, the more strong and unwavering is their love to him, and their confidence in his ability to save.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain On vv35, 38, 39 Who then, or what shall separate us from the…
Who then, or what shall separate us from the love of Christ? Neither devils, nor men, nor any thing in nature, unless it be by our own fault, and unless we wilfully and sinfully leave God. --- I am sure. In the Greek, I am [7] fully persuaded, that nothing can separate us, &c. In fine, another argument to prove we ought to have a firm hope in God, is that Christ Jesus, who sits at the right hand of God, also intercedeth for us. Christ, as man, intercedeth, prayeth for us, is our advocate and chief mediator See Hebrews vii. Christ is truly said to pray for us in heaven, though it is not the custom of the Church to call upon him in this manner, "Christ pray for us;" because being God, as well as man, he has all things under his command. (Witham)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On vv35–39 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?--This…
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?--This does not mean "our love to Christ," as if, Who shall hinder us from loving Christ? but "Christ's love to us," as is clear from the closing words of the chapter, which refer to the same subject. Nor would the other sense harmonize with the scope of the chapter, which is to exhibit the ample ground of the believer's confidence in Christ. "It is no ground of confidence to assert, or even to feel, that we will never forsake Christ; but it is the strongest ground of assurance to be convinced that His love will never change" [HODGE].
shall tribulation, &c.--"None of these, nor all together, how terrible soever to the flesh, are tokens of God's wrath, or the least ground for doubt of His love. From whom could such a question come better than from one who had himself for Christ's sake endured so much? (See 2Co. 11:11-33; Co1 4:10-13). The apostle says not (remarks CALVIN nobly) "What," but "Who," just as if all creatures and all afflictions were so many gladiators taking arms against the Christians [THOLUCK].
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On vv35–39 35. Who… separate—The apostle now issues his third challenge…
35. Who… separate—The apostle now issues his third challenge to the foes of the redeemed. He has called for the accuser, the condemner, and now he summons the separator, sure that none dare appear. He next challenges an entire catalogue of enemies by name and declares the discomfiture of all.
Love of Christ—It is a strange dispute between commentators whether this phrase signifies our love to Christ or Christ’s love to us. We often speak of a person being separated from another’s affection, but whoever heard of a man being separated from his own love to another? Besides, it is God’s and Christ’s maintenance of the cause of the Christian which runs through the entire passage. In the present verse the apostle enumerates a series of earthly or natural foes of the Christian, and in 38 and 39 the supernatural or transcendent.
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Nothing, indeed, can separate the believer from Christ; but the man may depart from his faith and cease to be a believer. Nothing can kill the Christian, but he may commit suicide. None can pluck him out of his Father’s hand, but he may leap out of that hand himself. And hence of that one enemy which a man may be to himself the apostle makes no mention in his hostile catalogue.
Tribulation—The apostle now enumerates seven enemies which assail the Christian in vain. Not but that these foes can materially harm him, though they can neither accuse nor condemn him as before God. From their corporeal assaults, even the Divine Protector promises no immunity and no deliverance from their earthly power. But they cannot break, they will brighten, rather, and strengthen the golden chain that fastens the justified to Christ.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv35–39 35. Who shall separate us] He speaks in view…
35. Who shall separate us] He speaks in view of these amazing proofs of the grace and truth of the Father and the Son.—“Who,” not “what;” although the following words are of things, not persons. This is in harmony with the intense and vivid tone of the whole passage. Cp. Joh_10:28-29; “no one shall pluck them out of my hand; no one can pluck them out of my Father’s hand.”—“Us” is slightly emphatic by position: q. d., “us, thus cared for and pleaded for.”
the love of Christ] Same word as 2Co_5:14; Eph_3:19. It is the love of Christ for us, not ours for Him. The whole context here relates to our security through the goodness of God.—In what sense are the things now to be named viewed as “not separating” us from this love? Probably they are to be taken as so many veils or clouds between us and the (outward) manifestation of the love; things which might tempt the believer to think that his Lord had forsaken him. St Paul assures him that this cannot be really so; the separation is but seeming; the love is indissoluble.
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tribulation, &c.] St Paul had indeed a right to use such language as the language of experience. See e.g. 2Co_11:23-27; 2Ti_3:10-12. Cp. Heb_11:35-38, (of the O. T. saints.)
It will not be out of place to quote from the letter of a sufferer for his faith, in the French galleys, 1739: “Having, by the grace of God, made a Christian profession, we are bound to be faithful soldiers and submit to the Lord’s will. Our chains are where He has placed them. Our persecutors think to disgrace us by putting us with malefactors; but in this we are honoured of God, who gives us cause for rejoicing that He counts us worthy to bear shame for the name of Jesus.… God has predestinated us to be conformed to the image of His Son, that suffering with Him we may also be glorified together. Our life is hid with Christ in God; but when Christ who is our life shall appear, then shall we also appear with him in glory.” (Letter of M. Villevaire, in Bonnefon’s Life of B. du Plan, p. 241, Eng. Trans.)
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On vv35–39 (35) The love of Christ.—That is to say, the…
(35) The love of Christ.—That is to say, the love which Christ has for us, not that which we have for Christ.
Shall tribulation?—Comp. 2Co_6:4; 2Co_11:23. The Apostle is speaking from his own actual experience.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On vv35, 38 Vers. 35-39. Who shall separate us from the love…
Vers. 35-39. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? (i.e. the love of Christ to us, and in the same sense "the love of God" below; cf. tou agaphsantov hmav in ver. 37). Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written, For thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. (This quotation of Psa_44:22 may be introduced as showing that such trials have ever been the lot of God"s servants, and did not separate the saints of old from God.) Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors (upernikwmen we not only conquer in spite of them; we conquer all the more because of them; cf. Rom_5:3, etc., and Rom_8:28) through him that loved us. For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall he able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. In these two concluding verses the thought is distinctly extended from circumstances of trial to all powers, human or superhuman, that may be conceived as assaulting us through them, or in any way opposing us. But it is still adverse powers and influences, not our own failure in perseverance, that are in view. It is not necessary to define what is exactly meant by each of the expressions in these verses. Enough to say that what is meant is, that nothing whatever, in heaven or earth, or under the earth, can thwart God"s good purpose for us, or separate us from his love.
The following paraphrastic summary of this important chapter, free from the encumbrance of notes, may help to a clearer perception of its drift and sequence of thought:
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There is then no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus.
Vers. 35-37. Certainly not these present trials and calamities, however severe; though "we are killed all day long, and are appointed as sheep for the slaughter." Through Christ, who so loved us as to share them, we are conquerors all the more by means of them.
Spiritual victory.
It is not every good cause which, as far as we can see upon earth, when opposed with human hostility, prospers and triumphs, at once, manifestly, and for ever. This only proves that Providence takes a wider view than is possible to us, and has purposes extending far beyond this world. But the one great cause of moral goodness, the cause of Christ, is always really victorious. The warfare is just, the weapons sound, the Captain skilful, and victory certain.
I WHAT CONSTITUTES THE CHRISTIAN"S VICTORY. In the first age the conflict was to a large extent with open persecution. Jesus himself endured "the contradiction of sinners," and warned his apostles to expect the same. In our time there is indeed persecution for Christ"s sake to be endured, both open and secret; but perhaps the dangers now to be dreaded are those of prosperity rather than of adversity. Pure Christianity has to combat scepticism, materialism, the self-indulgent habits of the age. Pure Christianity has to be upon its guard against superstitious views and habits, and mere outward compliance with public opinion. Such influences openly or insidiously threaten the religious life, especially of the young and the unwary. Hence the necessity of watchfulness, of preparation, of the Divine panoply, of courage and endurance. For the promise is to "him that overcometh," and the true soldier is ever the true conqueror.
II WHAT ENHANCES THE CHRISTIAN"S VICTORY. Christians are assured that they shall be "more than conquerors exceeding or triumphant conquerors.
1. The severity of the conflict. This is evidenced by the admitted power of the enemy and the variety of his attacks, by the number who in the past have been defeated by the foe of Christ, by the defection of many fainthearted or disloyal combatants, and by the protraction of the conflict.
2. In contrast with all this has to be considered the thoroughness of the conquest. This is evidenced by the magnificence of the reward to the victors, by the vast number of those who shall share the honours of the victory, and by the glory and perpetuity of the triumph which shall follow.
III WHAT SECURES THE CHRISTIAN"S VICTORY. At first there may appear to be some incongruity in the expression, "more than conquerors through him that loved us. " Yet upon reflection it will appear that he must indeed have loved us, to mingle in such a fray and to lead his soldiers and followers even unto his own death. And the teaching alike of Scripture and of individual experience assures us
(1) that Jesus conquered the foe for us, when he really overcame the world and Satan, by whom he seemed, to superficial observers, himself to be vanquished; and
(2) that Jesus conquers the foe in us, giving us the example, the motive, the spiritual power and principle which ensure to us immortal victory.
Vers. 35-39. The great persuasion.
This second special question which Paul asks has reference to that final glorifying of believers by God, that perfect conformation to the image of his Son, which is the import of his purpose concerning them, the goal of all his working. The "love of Christ," or the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord," is represented as laying hold of them with a firm grasp, to rescue them from death, and to raise them to perfect newness of life; and the apostle asks, in view of all possible evils which might seem to threaten the accomplishment of such purpose, assuming, of course, their own continued loyalty of heart, "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?" and, as he recapitulates all actual or imagined perils, the ready answer still breaks forth from his lips, "Nought, nought shall separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord I" We have, then, here for our consideration love; love"s hindrances; love"s triumph.
I LOVE. The great truth, great beyond all others, fundamental to all others; the truth to which all the revelations were designed to lead, and in which they culminate; the truth set forth so wondrously in the life and death of Christ, is this, that "God is love." This love was manifest in man"s creation, and in the rich resources of man"s world, furnished for man"s sake with such liberal lavishment; it was manifest yet more in man"s redemption, and in the rich resources of man"s spiritual world, prepared and furnished for man with infinite tenderness. And how has it not been manifest to each of the called ones, laying hold of them, lifting them from the depths, setting them even now in heavenly places, and destining them, as joint-heirs with Christ, to all the blessedness of an immortal future!
II LOVE"S HINDRANCES. But this love has its seeming hindrances; shall they obstruct the accomplishment of its designs?
1. Death and life.
(1) Death was no fancied evil then; for, as he tells us, it was only too true that "for God"s sake they were killed all the day long, accounted as sheep for the slaughter." And in another place he speaks of being, as it were, appointed to death". (1Co_4:9) And again (1Co_15:31) he says, I die daily." Not mere talk, for we know how in reality this was the seal of their witness-bearing. The Roman Christians, in after-times in what terrors was not death arrayed to them? As under Nero.
And so whenever the beast the brute power of ungodliness has made war with the saints. (Rev_13:7) And even now in the forefront of the conflict there is death for Christ"s sake; and to all there is the dread dying that sooner or later must end this mortal strife.
(2) But the life itself is filled with jeopardy. Perhaps really more trying test than any martyrdom: latter once for all, and glory round it; former protracted and commonplace.
(a) Positively: dangers and difficulties of circumstance and event; moral difficulties, as world"s reproach, and opposing one"s self to stream of custom; and difficulties relating to one"s own patient continuance in well-doing.
(b) Negatively: the allurements of temptation; repetition of primal fall. Thus life perpetually tries us.
1. Angels and principalities. Ephesians 6. opens our eyes to the tremendous forces arrayed against us. So Bunyan"s allegory no fiction. There is a real, objective opposition of spiritual wickedness" against us, and of what strength and subtlety who shall say? And through the medium of the strength and authority of the "powers" of this world; as Roman emperors.
2. Height and depth. Great exaltation, of this life or of the spiritual life, has its besetting temptations: so Paul himself (2Co 12) in danger of being "exalted above measure." Great depression or abasement has likewise its perils: rebellion, or despair.
3. Things present and things to come. Boding fears often worse than actual fightings. So we may "die a thousand deaths in fearing one.
4. Any other creation. The apostle has been hinting at a new creation, when the true Paradise shall be restored. But if the former Paradise was so perilous, and this creation now has so many perils, what may not the new creation bring? Shall that separate us from the love of Christ?
III LOVE"S TRIUMPH. Shall these things separate us from God"s love? Nay, God"s love is too strong; and God"s gifts, already given, are too great. And, indeed, those things all enter into the working of God"s purpose, and therefore cannot break it. Nay, more: if they enter into the working of that purpose, they shall actually subserve it; and so we shall not only conquer, but more than conquer (ver. 28); for that which is against us shall become for us, evil shall be transformed to good, our enemies shall become unwitting friends. "More than conquerors!" Of our entry into life they swell the triumph (illustrate by triumph of Roman generals), and so an entrance is ministered to us abundantly into the everlasting kingdom.
Let this be our persuasion, our faith; so shall we be strong, and at last we shall realize the victory which is even now assured. T.F.L.
Victorious love.
This chapter is like a stream that gathers strength and volume as it flows. Beginning with the Christian"s state as one of freedom from condemnation, it ends by placing him on the summit of victory, radiant with the love of God. It is a chapter full of Christ. Christ in humiliation and triumph; Christ as the Sacrifice in whom sin was condemned, and, as the risen Redeemer, the Firstborn of many brethren; Christ as the present Strength of his people by his indwelling Spirit, and, as seated upon the throne, the perfect Son of God, to whose lineage all the sons are to be conformed. The earnest rhetoric of the apostle leads him to summon all adversaries to the bar, and challenge them to prove their ability to upset his reasonings and destroy the hopes of the followers of Christ. Who or what shall sever the tie that binds them to their Lord?
I THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE CHALLENGE. "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?" The passage requires us to understand the expression as referring rather to Christ"s love for us than to our response to his love. See the parallelism with ver. 37, "through him that loved us." And ver. 39 speaks of "the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." This interpretation loses no shade of meaning, since Christ"s affection involves our love in return, as its natural outcome. The expression is, in truth, a description of our religion. To be severed from Christ"s love means utter loss.
1. Christianity is founded upon the love of Christ. This looked down pityingly upon our dark and helpless world. It shone through all the symbols of the Law, pointing the worshippers to the coming Saviour. It nerved him to endure his anguish in the garden and on the cross. It has provided for man a day of grace, and the endowment of the Spirit to renew and sanctify.
2. The new life is dependent on the continued manifestation of this love. Remove the sunlight, and the plant sickens and dies. Let the supply of the air above be stopped, and the diver cannot breathe. Without the love of Christ operating on the heart, the sweetest ordinances lose their savour, communion by reading and prayer is eclipsed, no rainbow brightens the tears of penitence. The love of Christ shed abroad is the root of obedience. From it we draw our most influential motives to holiness and service. The lustre of our deeds is marred unless encircled by this golden band.
3. The love of Christ is the love of God herein revealed. Christ is the Horn of plenty by which the Father would pour into the lap of his children all good things. To be sundered from this love must signify, therefore, our estrangement from all that lifts us heavenward. Could this happen, Christianity were stilled into a frozen sea, the ripples and waves remaining in form, but not in motion and might a waste of desert ice. The query is not merely oratorical. Endeavours to intercept the love of Christ are reiterated and prolonged. The words that follow are not empty terms, not visions of the night, but stern foes, combatants to be encountered by day.
II THE CONFIDENT REPLY. The apostle answers his own query. Look at the particular things enumerated, and then appreciate the apostolic assurance.
1. The trials of life cannot defeat the purposes, of Christ"s love. "Tribulation, anguish, famine, nakedness," though they may becloud our path and awaken a bitter cry, yet, instead of being regarded as indications of abandonment, are rather signs of the providential discipline which perfects sanctification. The good Shepherd is moved to greater compassion at the sight of the wounds of his flock.
2. The hostility of an unbelieving world cannot dissolve this union. "Persecution, peril, and the sword" do but liken the servant to the Master. Piety has thriven most in days of ridicule and torment. Christian heroism cheerfully underwent the loss of goods, stripes, and imprisonment; it converted jails into holy fanes resounding with praise and prayer. "In that he suffered being tempted," he has proved himself "able to succour those that are tempted.
3. The apostle advances in his enumeration. Neither "death," however grim its aspect, nor "life," with its snares and bewitchments, its competitions, its trifles, can succeed in detaching the pilgrim from the protecting love of his Guide. Nor can the ranged battalions of evil win the victory. Christ triumphed over them, and conquers still.
4. So finally the apostle sums up in the emphatic comprehensive assertion that neither the forces of time, "things present and to come," nor the forces of space, "height and depth," bewildering the imagination or depressing the soul, no, "nor any other created thing," above or below, personal or impersonal, animate or inanimate, known or unknown, shall defeat the loving purpose of Christ in the salvation of his people. "Many waters cannot drown his love, nor the floods quench it.
III THIS CONFIDENCE JUSTIFIABLE.
1. The dignity of Christ"s Person and the perfection of his character forbid fear. His love falters not, is not fickle; it waxes, but never wanes. He does not undertake what he cannot accomplish, nor begin what is beyond his power to finish. The foes to our salvation were foreseen and measured from the first. To doubt it is to dishonour him.
2. The whole trend of the redemptive scheme is against any supposition of abandonment by Christ. How infinite the price already paid! How steadily and surely the great design of salvation has marched through the ages, developing ever deeper wisdom and unfailing resources! We might wonder that man had not been left to himself in his rebellion and a new race created; but man"s elevation having been promised and begun, every indication points to the ultimate fulfilment of our purest and brightest hopes.
3. Innumerable biographies confirm the apostle"s declaration. , May our life add another testimony! Look at the forces opposed to our steadfastness, and then, like Peter, we lose heart and begin to sink. Fix the gaze upon Christ, and our cheerful courage, our triumphant conviction of his unshakable love, will of itself lend such vigour to our loyalty that every apprehension of disaster shall vanish. S.R.A.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain On vv35, 38 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?
Rom_8:35-39
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?
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Dangers which cannot separate the believer front the love of God
We begin with the general proposition, Who shall separate us? etc. And for the love of Christ it may be taken either actively or passively; actively for our love of Him, or passively for His love of us, which latter acceptation of it seems to be that which is here chiefly intended. First of all, let us look upon it in the thing itself. Who or what shall take off the love of Christ from us? That is, indeed, nothing at all. First, no persons shall be able to do it, whether Satan or wicked men. These they do now and then attempt it: as they are out of Gods love themselves, so they would fain make others so too. First, not by means of accusation: accusation is an expedient way to take off affection. It was the course which Ziba took with Mephibosheth, the son of Jonathan, in reference to David. And it is the course which the devil and his instruments take with those which are faithful in reference to God. Satan he is the accuser of the brethren. Secondly, as not by accusation, so neither by temptation. Again, as no enemy or person, so further no state or condition. That there is no condition, though never so forlorn, that can make God to forsake His people. Now there is a various account which may be given hereof unto us. Ye may take it in these following particulars:--First, from Gods unchangeableness, and the immutability of His own nature considered in Himself (2Ti_2:13; Jam_1:17; Joh_13:1; Jer_31:3; Isa_54:8). Secondly, there is nothing which can separate the love of God from His children, or which can separate His children from His love, because this love of His it is not founded in anything in themselves. If the Lord did therefore love His people because they were thus and thus accommodated with riches, or honours, or strength, or any such accomplishment, He would then also cease to love them when that these were taken away from them. Thirdly, Gods love is immovable as to anything which may happen unto us, because it was pitched upon us before we were, or had any being. That love which is from eternity in its original. Fourthly and lastly, there is no removal or taking off of the love of God from His people, in regard of the conveyance of it to them and the person in whom it is laid; and that is in His Son Jesus Christ--Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? The love which God bears to a Christian it is a love of covenant; and this covenant made in Christ. The second is as to the discovery or manifestation of this His love--Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?--that is, what shall be a sufficient argument to persuade us that Christ does not love us? The afflictions of Gods children are no arguments for the separation of Gods love. First, because they are all dispensed out of the principles of love; that cannot be an argument to prove the want of love which is an argument rather to prove the truth of love, His love unto them. As many as I love, I rebuke, etc. Secondly, it cannot be that affliction should be a withdrawing of Gods affection, because He never shows more affection than He does in such a condition. Thirdly, these outward afflictions are no good argument for the separation of Gods love, because the love of God reaches farther than these things here below. It is not limited or confined to this present life. Times of separation in other respects, yet they cannot be separating in this. They may separate a minister from his people; they may separate a husband from his wife; they may separate a father from his children; they may separate the soul from its body. Oh, but they cannot separate a Christian or true believer from Christ, nor from the love of God to him in Christ. And so now I have done with the first general part of the text which is this question or challenge, as it is considerable in the general proposition, Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? The second is the particular specification of evils themselves, which are seven in number: Shall tribulation or distress? etc. The first which is here presented is tribulation. The word in the Greek signifies to press, or pinch, or vex; and the word in the Latin signifies a threshing instrument or flail, wherewith the corn uses to be broken or beaten out; both of them do serve to set forth to us the nature of this present evil. First, I say, this evil of tribulation, it is such as is incident even to the saints and servants of God; they are such as are liable to great pains and griefs of body. St. Paul he had his tribulation, his thorn in the flesh, etc. And so it is with many others, etc. The apostle here instances in this as a principal evil, as that which is more general and which few escape. As for some other particulars which we find here mentioned in the text, they are such as all do not taste of. But yet even this in the next place shall not separate them from the love of God in Christ; a child of God is most dear to Him, even under tribulation itself. The second particular evil is distress: shall distress? The Greek word signifies properly straitness of place, when a man is so hampered as that he knows not which way to move, as it is with those who are shut up in some close and strait prison, or are in some violent throng and crowd. Now, this is another evil which Gods people are also liable unto, as to great and strong pressures of body, so to be in many sad distractions of spirit, to be in distress. It has been the lot sometimes of those who have been the dearest servants of God. This is an evil somewhat further and heavier than the former, which we spake of before; anguish of spirit is somewhat more than pressure of body, and which many times has a great influence upon it, A Christian is never brought into those exigencies and straits and extremities but he has still a God to go to, into whose bosom he may comfortably empty and unload himself, and find satisfaction in all his distresses. The third is persecution: shall persecution? which signifies properly a driving from place to place. When men are forced and constrained to leave their home and proper habitations, and to fly into other places and countries. It may separate us from our houses, these poor cottages of clay, but it cannot separate us from God, who is our abode and dwelling-place in all generations, nor deprive us of our everlasting habitation. The fourth thing here instanced in is famine. This is another great affliction which Gods people are subject unto here in this life. It is a wonderful thing to consider what strange kind of ways and means God has been pleased to provide for His servants in this particular. The fifth particular evil is nakedness. This is another trial of the saints, and the evil of it consists in two particulars. The one is as it is matter of shame, and the other as it is matter of danger, and hazard of life itself. Well, but this nakedness or stripping of apparel cannot strip the children of God of His love and favour in Christ, which shall still compass them about as a garment. The sixth here instanced in is peril, whereby we are to understand any danger or hazard of life in any kind whatsoever. Danger and fear of evil is many times a greater evil than the evil itself; and we know what difficulties and adventures it has sometimes put men upon. There are seasons and times of peril which Gods children are exposed unto; but God does not leave them at such times, nor withdraw His love from them; in the world sometimes it is otherwise. There are many that will own their friends in times of safety, which yet will not know them in times of danger. The seventh and last is sword, whereby we are to understand all kind of violent death whatsoever. (Thomas Horton, D.D.)
Christs love to us
An aged man over ninety years of age was asked by his pastor this question: My dear aged friend, do you love Jesus? His deeply-furrowed face was lit up with a smile that sixty-seven years of discipleship had imparted, and, grasping my hand with both Of his, said: Oh! I can tell you something better than that. I asked him, What is that? Oh, sir! he said, He loves me.
The Christians security
There is a well-known little shell-fish which has its dwelling on the rocks. To these it clings with such surprising tenacity, that almost all attempts to dislodge it are vain. It takes alarm at the slightest touch; resists the more, the more it is assailed; and maintains its persistency to such degree, that it will sooner submit to be crushed than to be removed … Christian, learn of this little animal the secret of your strength and security in times of trouble. Your place of defence is the munitions of rocks. Let nothing draw or drive you from your stronghold.
The Christian rejoicing in Christs unchangeable love
I. The love of God as the ground of the Christians security. This love in Rom_8:39 he terms the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. This is consonant with the general testimony of Scripture. In Him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead; and if the fulness, then the love. So that it is useless to seek Gods love out of Christ--there is none out of Christ. Now to make this love our confidence, we must bear in mind two things--
1. It has been the spring of all that has been done for our salvation.
(1) We speak of God as acting in this with a view to His own glory. True, but this is what we might almost venture to call an incidental circumstance. The sun manifests his glory as he rises day by day, but it is not the brightness of the sun that causes him to arise; we must look elsewhere for the source of that. So, if we would find the spring and origin of our salvation, we must look for it, not in the glory of the Godhead, but in the love of the Divine mind. Wisdom, justice, faithfulness, power, all shine forth here and are glorified; but how? As loves instruments. But what set love in action? We can give no answer; there is none to give; we are come to the fountain-head; we can go no farther.
(2) The same as to Christ. Various motives are assigned in Scripture for all He did and suffered for us; the hope of reward--for the joy that was set before Him He endured the Cross; obedience to His Father--He became obedient unto death; but without setting these things aside, we may still say, He loved us and gave Himself for us. He looked upwards--there was His Father whom He delighted to obey; He looked forwards--there was the glory He was soon to inherit; but no matter where He looked, His heart was with us.
2. The same love that was the spring of all that has been done for our salvation, still exists in God unimpaired and unchanged. The apostle, you observe, does not speak of it as something passed and gone. Many of the great things it has already done, it is not necessary it should do again. If Christ has once died for my soul, His one oblation of Himself once offered fully atones for all my sins; if God has once justified me, no other justification do I need; if He has built for me one heaven, I cannot want another; but so much does He love me now, that if my Saviour had not died, if my guilty soul had not been justified, etc., my God would do for me just what He has already done. For six thousand years the sun has shone without suspension, but there will come a day when he will shine no more. But the love of God existed for a boundless period before that sun, and it will exist for as boundless a period after Him. It is not something God has created; it is a part of His own nature.
II. The confidence we may feel, if we have an interest in this love, that nothing can ever separate us from it.
1. There is a love of God in which we are all interested, for we are all partakers of it. It keeps us in being, it gives us innumerable comforts, it makes to us in the gospel the most gracious offers of salvation; but if we trample on these offers or neglect them, there comes a time when this love turns away from us. It would go farther with us, but it cannot. The question is, then, Are you the objects of Gods peculiar, saving love? And the way to answer it is to ask, Have you ever sought to become the objects of it? Most men hold the love of God cheaper by far than they hold one anothers love. Do you feel that it is dearer to your soul than all other love?
2. There are two ways in which we can conceive it possible for a separation to be made between us and Gods love. One is, for Him to withdraw His love from us; the other, for us to withdraw ourselves from that. The uniting cord, we may say, may break at either end, either at its higher end with God, or at its lower end with us.
(1) As to the former of these cases, we need scarcely say a word. The very supposition seems a dishonour to Jehovah. He abandon me after having once freely loved me, and brought me to love and trust Him? I can feel, with Paul, that the whole universe could not prevail on Him to do it, were the whole universe to try (Rom_8:38). Other love will often cool and wither away of itself; here is a love which nothing can wear away.
(2) But let us turn to the other case--the drawing of us away from our love to Christ. This, the apostle expresses his firm conviction, is also impossible; and this conviction, he states, is the result of his own experience. There may now and then, he intimates, be struggling and conflict; we may have to put forth our strength, and a strength greater than ours, against these things, the force and pressure of them, but the struggle is sure to end in one way--we overcome. He has made to us new discoveries of His love in it, and these have made us more determined to love and adhere to Him. (C. Bradley, M.A.)
Separated from Christ
1. The apostle had passed through experiences varied and trying enough to entitle him to make this inquiry. He knew what he was talking about. It is not the unchastened enthusiasm of a recruit, but the sober declaration of a veteran that is before us--a No which has an unconquerable human soul in it! History has sufficiently answered this inquiry from one side of Christian experience. Set it down as a fact that terror has failed. The scaffold, the rack, the stake, the dungeon, have fairly been worsted in this great fight. Enemies have killed the body, but the principle of truth lives; they have slain Christians, but Christianity is conqueror.
2. But has the apostle covered the whole ground? Does he exhaust the whole possibility of Christian trial? I think not. It is instructive to mark the development of the antagonisms to Christianity. In the text we have nothing but the roughest and vulgarest of opposition, yet the most natural. The fist, the thumb-screw, the scourge, are what we think of at the beginning: first, that which is natural, afterwards that which is spiritual. The opposition does not end where the cruelty ends. We have thought that now the day of persecution has gone. I propose to substitute, Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall flattery, or ease, or luxury? shall selfishness or gentility, or the praise of men? The apostles were not tried upon these points. They were only out in the rough weather: they knew not the warmth of flattery or the power of the soft tongue. They fought their battle to the point of triumph; how are we going to fight ours? They conquered the stake: can we throw off the silken cords?
3. Paul himself gave an answer to the inquiry at a later date: Demas hath forsaken me, having loved this present world. When he wrote this epistle no answer came back upon him. But when he became an older man he saw further into the subtle play of the devil, and lived to see that love of the present world had done what tribulation, distress, etc., had failed to do! See the beginning of the mischief! Demas was separated from his nominal love of Christ, not by the sword, but by a bribe. If any man love the world the love of the Father is not in him. No man can serve two masters. Ye cannot serve God and Mammon! Yet men are still tempted to believe that somehow, having two hands, they can carry two worlds, and having two feet, they can walk upon two paths. Go to a Christian man and say, If you do not surrender your religious convictions you shall be burnt in the public market-place as a common felon, and if there is one spark of real manhood in his nature he will say, So be it! in the sufficiency of Divine grace I am ready. Go to that self-same man in a neighbourly way and show him how a certain thing in trade can be done so as to put him into the possession of considerable resources--with which he can afterwards do good. Possibly you may succeed! When you threatened him with the stake, he spat upon your fire; when you tempted him with a bribe, he said, I will think about it. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Not Nero; but a friend in the trade! Men are separated from the love of Christ in the name of wife and children. If thou wast a single man, and thy universe bounded by a carpet-bag, how virtuous and honourable thou wouldst be! You say to God in effect, The woman that Thou gavest to be with me, and the children of whom I am the father--these are my tempters. Has it come to this, that a man may not slay himself alone, but that he must do it in the name which should be dearest to him, and make his very children a weight about his neck that shall drag him to the depths of perdition? If you go to a Christian preacher and say to him, If you dont cease to preach you shall be thrown to the lions, if he has one spark of manhood left in him, he will declare his readiness to suffer in the name of Christ. The best memories will crowd upon him; he will think of that wondrous climax--Who through faith … stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence of fire, etc. When is the apostle going to finish that, and say, Refused the bribe; and as utterly defied the subtlety as the violence of the enemy? The apostle exclaimed to Timothy, Endure afflictions! What have we to say to young preachers now? Endure prosperity! It never occurred to Paul to say to Timothy, Now be on thy guard against flattery and merely outward success. When he charged those who were following him in the good cause, he said, Fight the good fight, endure hardness. All his talk ran along the line of his own experience, as if it never occurred to him that in the ages to come all the violent attacks would be laid aside and the enemy would betake himself to a more subtle course of assault upon the citadel of faith!
4. Turning this matter over carefully, I have seen how possible it might be for certain constitutions and temperaments really to be terrified from the open and distinct avowal of faith; yet right down in their hearts really to be loving Jesus all the time. But a man led away from the truth by a bribe, a soul to whom prosperity was shown as a lure--that is the meanest, basest cowardice! If the man who shrank from martyrdom may escape, what escape can there be for the man who took forbidden fruit, did things in secret which he was ashamed of in public, and who was separated from the love of Christ, not nominally and professionally, but who had his heart eaten out of him by some invisible and voracious foe? Separated from the love of Christ! What by? By the stroke of a feather! by a whispered temptation! by a mouthful of poisoned honey! The apostles gave the right answers to violence--what reply shall we make to subtlety? (J. Parker, D.D.)
The indissoluble bond
Who? No one who cannot do one of three things.
I. Annihilate the loved ones. The being who could blot out of existence those whom Christ loved might effect the object, but who could do this? No creature in the heavens or on the earth. No one but the Absolute.
II. Blot the loved ones from the memory of the lover. The being who could cause Christ to forget His disciples would succeed. For those whom we cease to remember we cease to love. But who can do this? He is omniscient, the past, present, and the future are all alike to Him. Duration is all a now to Him. He is the same yesterday.
III. Give new information of the loved ones to the lover. Were it possible for a being to inform Christ of some bad qualities and some enormous crimes connected with the loved ones of which He was ignorant, His love might be extinguished. But who could do this? No one in heaven or on earth. He knew from eternity all concerning the objects of His love. (D. Thomas, D.D.)
The two states
Is this he who so lately cried out, O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me? who now triumphs? O happy man! Who shall separate us from the love of God? Yes, it is the same. Pained then with the thoughts of that miserable conjunction with a body of death, and so crying out for a deliverer; now he hath found a deliverer to do that for him to whom he is for ever united. (Abp. Leighton.)
As it is written, For Thy sake we are killed all the day long.
Killing the saints
First, we will take notice of the affliction, and that is killing. We are killed. We see here what is the lot of the saints and servants of God. First of all, in regard of the enemies. What is the matter with them, that in their dealings with the people of God nothing will serve their turn but killing and slaying and taking away their lives? Surely it is not to be wondered at; there is very good reason for it, which may be given in these considerations: First, look upon them in their brood and generation and the stock they come of. Whose children are they? and from whom do they proceed? Children take after their parents. Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do (Joh_8:44). Therefore, in the second place, their dispositions carry them hereunto, and that in a twofold respect. First, it proceeds from their malice; they hate them and cannot abide them, therefore they kill them. Hatred, when it comes to the height of it, very easily proceeds to murder. The second is their jealousy and fear. As they kill them because they hate them, so they kill them because they fear them. Herod feared John, and therefore beheaded him. The second is how it comes about in regard of the saints themselves, whence they come to suffer it, and for what reason God Himself permits it. Why does He so? First, for the honour of religion and for the evidence of their faith itself, that the world from hence may be convinced of their sincerity and universal obedience to the will of God. Secondly, which is pertinent hereunto, for the multiplying and increasing of their number and the drawing on of more unto them. Thirdly, as the signification and evidence of future judgment and the dispensations of another world, the slaying and killing of the saints, it tells us what shall be done to the enemies, and how it is likely hereafter to go with the servants of God. Therefore it teaches us both to expect and prepare for the like, to provide for killing, and to be content to profess Christianity, even at so dear a rate as this. It will be worth it when all is done. For Thy sake we are killed. But if they were indeed killed, how could they say they were killed, and tell us so in so many terms? Killing, it takes away complaining, and makes the parties which are so dealt with incapable of saying what they are. First, as an expression of impatience, and making the worst of their evil and affliction that possibly they could. This we shall find sometimes to be the disposition of sorrow, to aggravate itself and make it seem greater than it is. But secondly, in the reality of the thing, the desperateness of their condition. They call it killing because it tended thereunto, and was in a manner death itself. Thirdly, from the preparation of their minds, and disposition which was in them hereunto, as occasion might require. The people of God in this Scripture count themselves killed, because they were ready to be so if God should please to call them unto it. Killing, it is not to be interpreted in this place according to the event, but according to the intention and purpose. They that go out in a wrong cause, they kill where they do not hit, because they go out upon killing and murdering principles. Lastly, the people of God might here say they were killed while they lived, by way of sympathy and participation. They were killed forasmuch as others were killed which they were interested in. And thus much now also of the first thing which I propounded to be considered in this complaint: the affliction itself, We are killed, or put to death. The second is the occasion or ground of it, We are killed for Thy sake, which may admit of divers constructions. First, as the pretence of the enemies. They kill us for Thy sake, that is, they deal thus cruelly with us, and make the world in the meantime believe as if herein they had respect unto Thee. Secondly, For Thy sake, that is, for our reference to. Thee, because we are Thy people, and worship Thy name, and profess Thy truth, and have Thy ordinances amongst us. Thirdly, it appears that Gods cause is the thing which the enemies aim at in their killing of Gods people, from a consideration of the means and ways whereby they labour to effect it, and that is by such as are most effectual to the extirpation of religion itself. Thirdly, For Thy sake. We may carry it a little further than so, not only as a complaint, but a confession. Not so much for a complaint of their enemies, as indeed a complaint of themselves. We are killed for Thy sake, that is, in satisfaction to Thy justice, Who art a just and righteous God, and wilt not suffer sin to be unpunished. Our enemies have nothing against us themselves, but they kill us for Thy sake, that is, to accomplish Thy holy decrees, to bring about Thy wise providence, to fulfil Thy righteous judgments, to visit and avenge the quarrel of Thy covenant. And so much of these words, as they may be taken under the emphasis of complaint. The second is under the emphasis of triumph, in the words of the apostle, and so we have this from it, that the main ground of rejoicing in suffering is the cause we suffer for. Then we have cause of quiet and comfort, when we can say, Tis for Thy sake. There are two things which are principally to be looked at in suffering--the one is a good conscience, and the other is a good cause. This it serves as a distinction between martyrs and malefactors. (Thomas Horton, D.D.)
Suffering in Gods cause
First, we will take it emphatically, and consider it so. There is that in the cause of God which is able to keep the heart up in the greatest sufferings. To be killed for Gods cause, it is a matter of special triumph. Secondly, it is a matter of rejoicing to suffer for Gods sake, because herein we are made conformable to Christ Himself. Thirdly, we hereby come to partake of greater glory hereafter; suffering in a good cause has the promise of a good reward, and has amends made it for time to come in another place (Mat_5:11-12). And thus it is true emphatically. That suffering for Gods sake is a matter of joy and rejoicing, we are killed: therefore glory in this our tribulation. Secondly, we may take it exclusively. For Thy sake we are killed, and that is for Thy cause and nothing else. From whence we have this observable, that there is not anything in suffering which can comfort the heart for itself except it be for Gods cause. It is not the punishment, but the cause, which makes the martyr. Again, further, as out of this there is no comfort in suffering, so indeed there is a great deal of discontent when a man shall reflect and enter into his conscience, and find that he does not suffer for Gods cause; he will have a very sad reckoning to make of it when he shall give up his accounts to God. There are three particular considerations which do make our sufferings and persecutions to be said to be for Gods sake. First, the intent of the enemies which we suffer from. We then suffer in this sense for Gods sake when they shall impose such evils and sufferings upon us in reference to God, because we are professors of religion and maintain the cause of God. It is thus far a suffering for Gods sake because the enemy he looks at God in it. But, secondly, we may be said to suffer for Gods sake from the nature of the thing itself which we suffer for. This now, it comes a little nearer, a man suffers for Gods sake when he suffers for well-doing, not only in the apprehension of the enemy, but likewise in the thing itself. First, when it is sinful in itself. He that suffers thus does not suffer for Gods sake, let an enemy be never so violent. Again, secondly, as when it is sinful in the thing. So likewise, when it is mingled and involved with any sinful circumstances, we do not properly suffer for God except we suffer every way for God. Thirdly, we are said to suffer for Gods sake according to the disposition of the spirit we suffer with, that is, when we have a pure respect to Gods glory in our suffering. And this is the second particular, the ground or occasion of these sufferings, For Thy sake. The third particular in these words is the extent and continuance of the persecution, All the day long. First, I say, but for a day. It pleases the Spirit of God to set forth to us the Churchs persecution under an expression of short continuance; it is not a week, or a month, or a year, but only a day; it is but one day and we have done. When evils are at any time upon us, as we see they are now at this present, we think they will never be gone, through our impatient disposition; but we should learn in this case to submit to the providence of God in the humbling of ourselves for our sins. The second is the extent of its continuance. As it is but a day, so it is a whole day, all the day long. We must take notice of that. And under this expression we have three things intimated unto us. First, the continuance of the affliction, An whole day. This it does denote unto us thus much, how that the afflictions of the people of God they do stay and abide upon them their appointed time. The second is the unweariedness of the enemy, All the day long. It is a sign that they are not spent nor tired out in this execution. They kill, and take no respite between. First, because it is natural to them. It is a business which they are carried unto by their proper inclinations. Actions which are natural are unwearied. The eye it is not weary of seeing, nor the ear is not weary of hearing, nor the pulse is not weary of beating, because all these are natural to them. Secondly, it is delightful to them. That is another account of it. Those things which are pleasing are unwearied. Thirdly, they are unwearied in this business, because they have very good help and assistance to further them in it. Many hands they use to make light work. Where the burden lies all upon one, or some few, it is easy to be weary. Well, this teaches us what to do in this condition. If they kill all the day long, we should pray all the day long. The third is the patience of the saints, Killed all the day long. Who could ever endure that? Yes, there where God gives help and strength to bear it men may be able to do it. And so was the Church here; she did not faint under continual tribulations. Here is now the great faith and constancy and patience of the saints. (Thomas Horton, D.D.)
The world seeking to destroy the good
First, by way of designation, they have determined and appointed us hereunto. Thus it is with those who are enemies to the saints and people of God; they resolve, if they can, to destroy them. First, I say, they look upon them as unprofitable, as a people of whom there is no use or good comes at all. Creatures which are unprofitable, you know, we use to dispatch and destroy. But, secondly, as they look upon them as unprofitable, and so destroy them for that, so withal they look upon them as troublesome and pernicious, and destroy them for that. It is ordinary and familiar with them to impute all the mischief that falls out to them as the causes. Secondly, by way of expectation. They count us as sheep for the slaughter--that is, they make sure of our destruction; they do verily and fully make account to see us destroyed. The reason of it is this: First, because they would very fain have it so. That which men desire they believe. And then, secondly, because most commonly they judge according to outward appearance. And then, thirdly, the Lord does also infatuate them and give them up to their own imaginations and vain conceits many times. That is the second thing, by way, namely, of expectation, They count us as sheep, etc, that is, they make sure of our destruction. Thirdly and lastly, which I conceive is principally intended in a way of scorn and contempt, They count us as sheep for the slaughter, that is, they make no reckoning of our destruction. They make no more of killing us than a butcher would do of killing a sheep. First, I say, their readiness to procure it. That which men have any esteem or account of they are very chary how they set themselves about it. These enemies they do it readily; they are not long ere they set themselves about it. That is one thing whereby they discover how cheap such mens deaths are with them. Secondly, their unmercifulness in the doing of it. These and the like considerations do manifest this truth unto us, how cheap the death of Gods people is in the esteem and account of Gods enemies. Well, let it be as cheap as it will be with such graceless persons as these are, yet we know there is One which sets a price and valuation upon it. Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints. The second is the form of allegation, As it is written. Therefore let us be persuaded to the exercising of ourselves in this book with all kind of diligence, to be acquainted with the Word of God and the principal passages of it, so as it may be no strange or unheard-of thing to us. Ye see hero how the apostle alleges it here in this place, As it is written; no more, but so. He does not tell them where, nor in what place, as taking it for granted that they know it. We should be so cunning and skilled in the Scripture that we should be able to know when it is Scripture which is alleged to us and when it is not from our acquaintance and conversation in it. Now, secondly, for that which is intimated and signified from it. And that is this, as the consent of Scripture with Scripture, so the consent of times with times, and the conditions of the people of God in all ages of the Church. We see here that it is no new business for Gods people to be under affliction; we have it here upon writing and record as that which has been long ago. First, there are the same grounds of persecution in Gods people themselves. Secondly, there is the same disposition in their enemies as has been in times past. Thirdly, there is the same wisdom and power in God Himself: wisdom to know how to impose them, and power how to moderate that they exceed not and go beyond bounds and their due proper limits. (Thomas Horton, D.D.)
Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors.--
More than conquerors
I. The Christian is conqueror. The battle consists of a moral conflict, with inward and outward enemies all leagued in terrible force against the soul. To this is added--what, indeed, was most peculiar to the early Church--a war of external suffering, of penury, persecution, and martyrdom. Now the way Christ provides for the holy warriors passage through this fiery contest is not by shunning, but by facing the foe. The Captain of their salvation might have withdrawn His people from the field and conducted them to heaven without the hazard of a conflict. But not so. He will lead them to glory, but it shall be by the path of glory. They shall carve their way to the crown by the achievements of the sword. But in what sense are we conquerors? Just in that sense in which the Holy Ghost obtains the victory. It is not the believer himself who conquers; it is the Divine Spirit within. No movement is seen, no tactics are observed, no war-cry is heard, and yet there is passing within the soul a more important battle, and there is secured a more brilliant victory, than ever the pen of the historian recorded. There is the conquest of--
1. Faith (Heb_11:1; Joh_5:4). Faith in the truth of Gods word, in the veracity of Gods character, in the might, and skill, and wisdom of our Commander; faith, eyeing the prize, gives the victory to the Christian combatant, and secures the glory to the Captain of his salvation.
2. Patience (Heb_6:12; Heb_6:15). Is it no real victory when beneath the pressure of great affliction the Christian is enabled to say, Though He slay me yet will I trust in Him?
3. Joy (1Th_1:6; Jam_1:2; Joh_16:20). And who but Jesus can turn our sorrow into joy?--not only assuaging our griefs and tempering the flame, but actually making our sorrows the occasion of thanksgiving. Confide your grief to Jesus, and He will cause it sweetly to sing (Psa_30:11-12; 2Co_7:4).
II. He is more than a conqueror. The same word as a far more and exceeding and eternal weight of glory. So we are far more exceeding conquerors. It is more than a mere victory which the believer gains. A battle may be won at a great loss to the conqueror. A great leader may fall at the head of his troops. The flower of an army may be destroyed, and the best blood of a nations pride may be shed. But the Christian conquers with no such loss. Nothing whatever essential to his well-being is perilled. His armour, riveted upon his soul by the Holy Spirit, he cannot lose. His life, hid with Christ in God, cannot be endangered. There is not a grace in his soul but shall come out purer and brighter for the conflict. Losing nothing, he gains everything! All his resources are augmented by the result. His armour is brighter, his sword is keener, his courage is more dauntless, for the conflict. Faith is strengthened--love is expanded--experience is deepened--knowledge is increased.
III. through Him that loved us. Here is the great secret of our victory, the source of our triumph. Thanks be to God which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through the conquest which He Himself obtained, through the grace which He imparts, through the strength which Be inspires, through the intercession which He presents, in all our tribulation, distress, persecution, etc., we are more than conquerors. Fear not, then, the darkest cloud, nor the proudest waves, nor the deepest wants--in these very things you shall, through Christ, prove triumphant. Nor shrink from the battle with the last enemy. He stands at your side a crownless king, and waving a broken sceptre. (O. Winslow, D.D.)
More than conquerors
I. The victories already won by those who have been possessed by the love of Jesus.
1. Tribulation, in the Latin, signifies threshing, and Gods people are often beaten with the heavy flail of trouble; but they are more than conquerors, since they lose nothing but their straw and chaff. The Greek, however, suggests pressure from without. It is used in the case of persons who are bearing heavy burdens, and are heavily pressed upon. Now, there are very few who do not meet with outward pressure, either from sickness, poverty, or bereavement; but under all believers have been sustained. It is said of the palm-tree that the more weights they hang upon it the more straight and lofty it is; and it is so with the Christian.
2. Distress. The Greek refers to mental grief. Straitness of place is something like the word. We sometimes get into a position in which we feel as if we could not move; the way is shut up; and our mind is distracted; we cannot calm and steady ourselves. Well, now, if you are a genuine Christian, you will be more than a conqueror over mental distress. Jesus shall say, as He walks the tempest of your soul, It is I, be not afraid.
3. Persecution. This in all its forms has fallen upon the Church, and up to this moment it has never achieved a triumph, but it has cleared it of hypocrisy; when cast into the fire the pure gold lost nothing but its dross, which it might well be glad to lose.
4. Famine. We are not so exposed to this as they were in Pauls time, who suffered the loss of all their goods, and consequently did not know where to find food for their bodies. No doubt there are some now who by their conscientious convictions are reduced to famine. But Christians bear even this sooner than sell their conscience and stain their love to Christ.
5. Nakedness. Another terrible form of poverty.
6. Peril--i.e., constant exposure to sudden death. 7, The sword--one cruel form of death as a picture of the whole. The noble army of martyrs have given their necks to the sword as cheerfully as the bride upon the marriage day gives her baud to the bridegroom. At this day you are not, the most of you, called to all this, but if ye were, my Lord would give you grace to bear the test. Your danger is lest you grow rich, become proud, and conform to the world, and lose your faith. If you cannot be torn in pieces by the roaring lion, you may be hugged to death by the bear. I fear that the Church is far more likely to lose her integrity in these soft and silken days than she was in those rough times. Are there not professors whose methods of trade are just as vicious as those of the most tricky?
II. The laurels of the fight. The words more than conquerors might be rendered more exceeding conquerors. The Vulgate has a word which means over over-comers, over and above conquering. For a Christian to be a conqueror is a great thing: how can he he more than a conqueror? Because--
1. The power by which he overcomes is nobler far. Here is a champion just come from the Greek games, Why! the mans muscles are like steel, and you say to him, I do not wonder that you beat and bruised your foe; if I had set up a machine made of steel it could have done the same. Where is the glory? One big brute has beaten another big brute, that is all. Dogs and bulls and game-cocks have endured as much, and perhaps more. Now, see the Christian champion. He is a simple, unlettered person, who just knows that Christ came into the world to save sinners; yet he has won the victory over philosophers. He has been tempted and tried; he was very weak, yet somehow he has conquered. This is victory indeed when the base things of this world overthrow the mighty.
2. The conqueror fights with some selfish motive, even when the motive is patriotism. But the Christian fights neither for any set of men nor for himself: in contending for truth he contends for all men, but especially for God; and in suffering for the right he suffers with no prospect of earthly gain.
3. The Christian loses nothing even by the fight itself. In most wars the gain seldom makes any recompense for the effusion of blood; but the Christians faith, when tried, grows stronger; his patience, when tempted, becomes more patient.
4. Most conquerors have to struggle and agonise to win the conquest, but Christians, when their love to Christ is strong, have found it even easy to overcome suffering for the Lord. Look at Blandina, enveloped in a net, tossed upon the horns of bulls, and then made to sit in a red hot iron chair to die, and yet unconquered to the close. Indeed, the tormentors were tormented to think they could not conquer timid women and children. I saw upon the lake of Orta, in northern Italy, on some Roman holy day, a number of boats coming from all quarters of the lake towards the church upon the central islet of the lake, and it was beautiful to hear the plash of the oars and the sound of song; and the rowers never missed a stroke because they sang, neither was the song marred because of the plash of the oars, but on they came, singing and rowing: and so has it been with the Church of God. That oar of obedience, and that other oar of suffering--the Church has learned to ply both of these, and to sing as she rows, Thanks be unto God, who always maketh us to triumph in every place!
5. They have conquered their enemies by doing them good. The Church has been the anvil, but she has broken many hammers. All true believers are far more glorious than the Roman conqueror. What flowers are they which angels strew in the path of the blessed? What songs are those which rise from yonder halls of Zion, conjubilant with song as the saints pass along to their everlasting habitations?
III. The persons that have conquered. Men who believed in Christs love to them, and who were possessed with love to Christ. This is their sole distinction. The poorest have been as brave as the wealthy; the learned have died gloriously, but the unlearned have almost stolen the palm. There is room for all who love the Lord in this fight, and there are crowns for each.
IV. The power which sustained these more than conquerors. It was through Him that loved us. Much depends upon the leader. Christ showed them how to conquer by enduring and conquering as their example. They triumphed through Christ as their Teacher, for His doctrines strengthened their minds, but, above all, because Christ was with them. The name by which the apostle called our Lord is the key to the text, Through Him that loved us. They knew that He loved them, and that if they suffered for His sake, it was His love which let them suffer for their ultimate gain, and for His permanent honour. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
More than conquerors
They not only resist, but prevail; and not only prevail, but triumph. They not only refuse to succumb and submit to their enemies, but they make those enemies submit to them. They lead captivity captive; they take the spoils of death and hell. There is such a thing as so conquering in battle as to suffer as much loss as a defeat would have cost. Or an army may merely repulse a foe, and maintain its ground. Some commanders, who are too stubborn to be beaten, are yet totally unable to follow up a victory, or make any adequate use of it. It is not so with the Christian. He can keep his ground; he can repel his enemies. He can do much more than that, He can win from them, as it were, honour, riches, territory, and renown. He can make them defray the cost of the campaign. He can extort from them the materials of the reward of his triumph. He can bind them to his chariot wheels, and like the old Roman generals, when a public triumph was awarded them, he can make his vanquished foes serve his interests, and heighten the glory of his renown. All this, however, is not by any might or prowess of his own, but it is through Him that loved us, Of Christ it is affirmed that His foes are made His footstool; and from their backs, prostrate in the dust, He leaps up to His throne. And Christs victory is our victory too. If we suffer with Him, we shall also reign with Him. (T. G. Horton.)
More than a conqueror
I. The spiritual life of man on earth is a battle. This is true of all men, whether godly or ungodly. There are two powers in every mans soul eternally antagonistic--the spiritual and the carnal; the former struggling ever for the absolute right, and the other for the personally gratifying. In the case of the ungodly, of course the spiritual is the weaker. Selfishness and passions struggle to keep the conscience down; whereas, in the case of the godly, the spiritual is the stronger, and the struggle of the higher nature is, to bring the dictates of self and the flesh into absolute subjection. The preceding chapter is a moral history of this conflict.
II. A conqueror in this battle is a glorious character He who conquers his passions, and subdues all the evil tendencies of his nature, is a hero in the highest sense.
1. He has developed some of the noblest attributes--as courage, self-sacrifice, perseverance. It requires a far higher courage to battle on the unobserved arena of the soul, against the favourite lusts and gods of the depraved nature, than to face an army in the open field.
2. He has pursued a course absolutely right. The course of a warrior admits of many solemn questions as to its rectitude; but he who battles against the wrong in his own heart is engaged in a struggle of undoubted righteousness.
3. He has achieved a result entirely benevolent. Even the most useful of the mere material wars have been mixed with immense evils; but in the case of this moral victory, nothing is destroyed but the destroyer, etc.
III. The Christian is more than a conqueror. A man is a conqueror when he overcomes his enemy; he is more than this when he is a gainer by the conquest.
1. He has lost nothing in the conquest. He might have been a conqueror and yet have lost much by his battles. Indeed, most material conquerors have suffered great losses; if not a loss of property, a loss of friends; a loss, perhaps, of health; a loss of peace of mind. But a Christian conqueror has lost nothing.
2. He has gained much by his conquest.
(1) Power. There is a tribe of savages whose warriors have the idea that the strength of the men they have killed flows into them by the fatal stroke. This has a reality in the moral conflict. Every moral enemy slain gives the slayer strength.
(2) Dominion. In material warfare a man may conquer, often does, and not become a king. Not so in this conflict; the Christian conqueror becomes the monarch of his own soul.
(3) Invincibility. In physical campaigns, conquerors have been conquered over again. Not so in this spiritual victory; the man who once conquers sin, becomes unconquerable for ever--he is kept by the power of God, etc.
IV. The Christian is more than conqueror through Christ.
1. Christ revealed the terribleness of the enemy. The soul would not have known how terrible her spiritual enemies were, had it not been for the revelation of Christ. He has shown what sin is.
2. Christ furnished the armour for the battle (Eph_6:14-18).
3. Christ gave the inspiration for the engagement. His love kindled the martial spirit in the sinners soul, and roused him to the conflict.
4. Christ gave them the conquering power. He made His strength perfect in their weakness. Thus their victory is through Christ, and the songs of eternity ascribe all spiritual conquests to His love (Rev_5:9; Rev_5:12-13). (D. Thomas, D.D.)
More than conquerors
A heterogeneous mass the apostle here brigades together as an antagonistic army. There is no attempt at an exhaustive enumeration, or at classification.
I. The impotent enemies of love. There is contempt in the careless massing together of the foes which the apostle enumerates. He begins with the widest word that covers everything--affliction. Then he specifies various forms of it. Distress, straitening, as the word might be rendered. Then he comes to evils inflicted for Christs sake by hostile men, persecution. Then he passes purely physical evils, hunger and nakedness. Then he harks back again to mans antagonism, peril, and sword. And thus carelessly, and without an effort at logical order, he lumps together, as specimens of their class, these salient points, as it were, and crests of the great sea, whose billows threaten to roll over us; and he laughs at them all, as impotent and naught, when compared with the love of Christ, which shields us from them all. There is no need, in order to rise to the full height of the Christian contempt for calamity, to deny any of its terrible power. These things can separate us from much. They can separate us from joy, from hope, from almost all that makes life desirable. They can strip us to the very quick, but the quick they cannot touch. The frost comes and kills the flowers, burns the leaves, cuts off the stems, binds the sweet music of the flowing rivers in silent chains, casts mists and darkness over the face of the solitary grey world, but it does not touch the life that is in the root. You need not be very much afraid of anything being taken from you as long as Christ is left you. You will not be altogether hopeless so long as you feel the sweet and all-pervading consciousness of the changeless love of Christ.
II. The abundant victory of love. Mark how the apostle, in his enthusiastic way, is not content here with simply saying that he and his fellows conquer. There must be something more than that to correspond to the power of the victorious Christ that is in us. Note, then, further, that not only is this victory more than bare victory, being the conversion of the enemy into allies, but that it is a victory, which is won even whilst we are in the midst of the strife. No ultimate victory, in some far-off and blessed heaven, will be ours unless moment by moment, here, to-day, we are more than conquerors through Him that loved us. So, then, about this abundant victory there are these things to say--You conquer the world only then when you make it contribute to your conscious possession of the love of Christ. Has the world helped me to lay hold on Christ? Then I have conquered it. Has the world loosened my grasp upon Him? Then it has conquered me. Note, then, further, that this abundant victory depends on how we deal with the changes of our outward lives, our sorrows or our joys. The set of your sails, and the firmness of your grasp upon the tiller, determine whether the wind shall carry you to the haven or shall blow you out, a wandering waif, upon a shoreless and melancholy sea. The worst of all afflictions is a wasted affliction, and they are all wasted unless they teach us more of the reality and the blessedness of the love of Jesus Christ.
III. The love which makes us conquerors. The apostle, with a wonderful instinctive sense of fitness, names Christ here by a name congruous to the thoughts which occupy his mind, when he speaks of Him that loved us. His question has been, Can anything separate us from the love of Christ? And his answer is, So far from that being the case, that very love, by occasion of sorrows and afflictions, tightens its grasp upon us, and, by the communication of itself to us, makes us more than conquerors. This great love of Jesus Christ, from which nothing can separate us, will use the very things that seem to threaten our separation as a means of coming nearer to us in its depth and in its preciousness. The apostle says, Him who loved us, and the words in the original distinctly point to some one fact as being the great instance of love. That is to say they point to His death. And so we may say Christs love helps to conquer because in His death He interprets for us all possible sorrows. The Cross is the key to all tribulation, and declares it to be a token and an instrument of an unchanging love. Further, that great love of Christ helps us to conquer, because in His sufferings and death He becomes the companion of all the weary. The rough, dark, lonely road changes its look when we see His footprints there, not without specks of blood in them, where the thorns tore His feet. And, lastly, this dying lover of our souls communicates to us all, if we will, the strength whereby we may coerce all outward things into being helps to the fuller participation of His perfect love. (A. Maclaren, D.D.)
Conquerors through Christ
There are two points of consideration before us--
I. The things in which we are victorious. In all these things, says the apostle. We may classify these--
1. The condemning power of the law and sin. Who is He that condemneth? The Christian never loses sight of the fact that he has been, and still is, a guilty sinner. The power of sin to visit judgment through the law is a fearful thing to an unforgiven sinner; but before it all, the believer can stand in serene triumph and feel himself safe. Looking up, around, and beneath, he can see none that can enforce condemnation against him. The law cannot--for its honour and claims have been satisfied in atoning blood.
2. Further, a whole group of trials is found in the hindering powers of the world and Satan. Look at the array of troubles of which the apostle speaks--Tribulations, distress, persecution, etc. In our day, the form and manner of opposition, temptation and danger are somewhat different, but they are just as real and almost as numerous. Till Satan and the world cease to be what they are, our Christian life must lie through temptations, opposing powers, influences that imperil and destroy. The forces of sin sometimes charge on men in violent assault--a fierce assailment in an open crisis battle, for supremacy in the soul. We all have our moral Sedans, where we are put to the alternative of winning or losing the crown of Christian character. Such times of mighty peril are more frequent than most persons suspect, for the battles are not always open in their meaning. Men are on trial for life or death, often, when they know it not. It is often a decisive battle between the powers of darkness and light for the soul of the young, when they are to decide their calling in life, between a business safe and pure, and one full of temptation. Sometimes the temptation is insidious and gradual in its approaches and power. Fabius mode of warfare was that of ever hanging about his enemy and weakening him little by little, inflicting small but continual injuries. This is the commonest way of the warfare of the world and sin on the Christian. A continual pricking of a polished surface with needle-points will ultimately tarnish it. A continual dropping will wear away the solid rock; and the most perilous trials of Christians may be suffered from quiet but continuous touches of evil from the world and sin. It may be an incipient development of a worldly spirit, filling your heart with the love of money and moving you nearer and nearer to the edge of some moral precipice. It may be the growth of a temper of neglect for known duty, till the spirit of duty is eaten all out of your heart, or the plants of grace are all smothered to feebleness or death. So it is, too, as to afflictions, more generally so-called--the things that form distresses to be borne rather than temptations to sin. In the trials of the apostle, there was a great fight of afflictions. And it is while burdened with trouble and struggling against sorrows that every believer has his victory to reach. But here again, in view of it all, God throws down on you the light and cheer of this experience of the apostle: In all these things we are more than conquerors.
II. How we are made conquerors. This is a point of grand importance to us. As the Israelites, imperilled by Pharaohs pursuing army, were concerned to see how to go forward in safety, we are concerned to know the way to overcome the oppositions and trials in our onward Christian way. How conquerors? Through Him that hath loved us.
1. Not, therefore, in and of ourselves. Dependence on self alone is a broken reed that here plunges into defeat. However much extolled, and really grand a thing self-reliance is, in some relations in this spiritual work it is inadequate. The fetters of depravity and condemning sin are too strong for human strength alone to wrest off. The power of temptation is too mighty to be withstood without aid.
2. But through Christ that loved us, we are conquerors. It is surely only by Him that we triumph against the threatening curse of sin, in the matter of justification. And in the matter of temptation and trials, our victory is in Him. With Christ on our side, they are more that are for us than they that are against us. It is often surprising how Christ and Christs love give strength to the feeble. There were giants in those days. In a better sense, there are giants in all days--Christians made mightier than all the powers of evil. They have locks of triumphant strength against all the Philistines of temptation, sin, and harassment that may be upon them.
3. But though through Christ, it is not without our own effort. Christ keeps us by enabling us to keep ourselves. We are strong, not effortless, but by and in effort. Every iota of the might by which the victory is given us must run along spiritual nerves within us--must come into our hearts, go into the will, and flow out into the hands and feet of personal activity and steadfastness. Divine strength is always ready for the needy Christian, but he must use it. How do you overcome the perilous temptation of love of the world? It is by so receiving the grace of Christ as to crucify your affection for its follies and sins. How do Christians in general prove safe against the incessant temptations to evil about them? It is by storing their own minds and hearts with the light, truth, counsel, and quickening force of Gods Word. All evils will be powerless against you, if, like the tree that grows strong against storms by receiving the strength that comes up from every root, pours through every vein into every branch, and hardens into firmness and might by the air and sunbeams, you take up into the fibre and nerve of your own Christian life the invigorating influence of all Gods grace furnished you, and you grow strong and compact as a tree of righteousness, Christ living and acting in you.
4. But observe--the assurance goes further, With beautiful force it says: We are more than conquerors. Our victories, in which we remain safe, are a means of increasing our faith, our love, our power. Trials are turned into occasions of development and power. The mind brightens by its use. The heart is enriched by the exercise of its virtues. Idleness and ease enfeeble. The Church is often too indolent and peaceful for its proper development and high glory. There is nothing like war to make soldiers. It is by wrestling with the angels of trial, affliction, and labour, that you become a prince with God. How blessed is the Christian--the victory given him here, the crown hereafter. It is for us to know whether we are conquering, daily--defeating Satan, subduing sin, proving successful in doing good, in the face of everything that opposes. (M. Valentine, D.D.)
More than conqueror
Ignatius, who was martyred in the year 107, said, Let fire and the cross, let wild beasts, let all the malice of the devil come upon me; only may I enjoy Jesus Christ. It is better for me to die for Christ, than to reign over the ends of the earth. Stand firm, he added, as an anvil when it is beaten upon. It is part of a brave combatant to be wounded, and yet to overcome. In losing life he found it.
The Christian more than conqueror through Christ
It is a rough sort of life that most resolute Christians lead. I do not speak of commonplace professors, many of whom shuffle through easily enough. But those, of whom the apostle himself was one, have a severe and sifting ordeal to pass. As it is written, For Thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. It was thus that Immanuel Himself was treated. It was a doomed life He led on earth. The rudest language and the harshest treatment were reckoned good enough for Him. It is enough for the servant to be as his Lord. But just as Jesus conquered it all, so each disciple will overcome it too. Like the little boat that follows in the great ships wake, which receives the blast somewhat abated by the statelier form ahead, but in other respects backs the same billows and plunges down into the same sea-trough; so the believer follows the Forerunner, encountering in mitigated fury the head-wind which opposed His course, but riding the same billows of tribulation, distress, and peril which He breasted on His path to glory. But, like the cord which connects the little boat and the great ship together, there is that which joins the Saviour and the believing soul to one another. Tribulation, distress, persecution cannot sever them, and in the same haven of security, the same sea of glass, where the mightier sail is already furled, and Immanuels own anchor is already dropped, the fragile little bark which follows will soon come to its quiet mooring, more than conqueror through Him who went before it. (J. Hamilton, D.D.)
The Christian conqueror
I. Christians are conquerors.
1. At their first conversion, when through grace they obtain deliverance from the power of darkness and unbelief.
2. When grace gains the ascendancy, and particular corruptions are weakened and subdued. Growing Christians are going on conquering and to conquer. Partial advantages give assurance of a final conquest.
3. At a throne of grace. God fulfils their requests, and often exceeds them, as He did those of Solomon.
4. Over the afflictions and trials of the present life, and such as they are called especially to endure for Christs sake.
5. In a dying hour. The victory then obtained is great and glorious, complete and everlasting (1Co_15:54-57).
II. Christians are more than conquerors.
1. They conquer those enemies which none besides can conquer, and which to all others would be invincible. They overcome those powers of darkness which have overcome the world. Those who have obtained the greatest victories are often the slaves of the basest lusts. But the Christian triumphs over himself; and while he is waging war with the corruptions that are in the world, he is no less successful in his opposition to that depravity which reigns within. They conquer that by which all are conquered, even death; thus they lead captivity captive.
2. The means by which they overcome are such as enhance the glory of their conquests. When kings go forth to battle, they muster the host, calculate their numbers, and oppose force to force. But in the Christian warfare, it is not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit, saith the Lord of hosts. I can do all things, said Paul, through Christ who strengtheneth me (Psa_18:29; Isa_30:1; 1Co_12:9-10; Rev_12:11).
3. The manner in which they overcome makes them more than conquerors. They are sure of success beforehand, which no other combatants are. They also conquer in a little time. The sound of an alarm is quickly followed by the sound of triumph. The conflict may continue as long as life; but what is our life? It is but a vapour. Besides, continued resistance will weaken the hands of our enemies and strengthen ours, so that the conquest shall be easy, and obtained with little loss. A victory is often dearly purchased; but the Christian loses nothing that is worth retaining; he gains by every battle.
4. The victory obtained is over and above measure, as the word signifies. The victory is exceedingly great and glorious, far beyond what is accomplished in any other warfare. It is not like a drawn battle, in which both sides may claim the advantage; the defeat is total, and the enemy is swallowed up in victory. We must remember, however, that all our successes are owing to Him that hath loved us (Psa_41:4; 2Ti_4:7; 1Jn_4:4).
Improvement.
1. Let not believers be dismayed at any opposition they may meet with (Psa_27:1-3).
2. The most successful Christian should take heed of pride and self-sufficiency. Let him say with the apostle, Not I, but Christ who dwelleth in me. (B. Beddome, M.A.)
The gain of the Christian conqueror
To be simply a conqueror is barely to overcome an enemy--to be more than conqueror is to derive absolute gain from the contest. Those Roman Christians were engaged in a struggle so severe that it would often seem doubtful to them whether they could be conquerors at all. They saw corruption reigning unbridled in power, and regal in success, while they were subject to hunger, nakedness, and peril. It is a difficult thing to maintain firm belief in a truth when all circumstances seem to oppose it, and proclaim it untrue. And still more, their danger through the deepening hatred of the populace must have tempted them, daily, to save themselves by denying their Lord. Amid the long, hard struggle they would doubtless think it a great achievement if they could only hold fast till the close, and barely overcoming, enter heaven. Paul tells them they would do more. That phrase, more than conquerors, etc., was a power to nerve those Roman men to stand fast in the evil day, until death found them steadfast still. But although the peculiar energy of the troubles of that day must have clothed these words with marvellous force, they still present a truth which every Christian needs to learn. For every man has his own temptation to overcome, and his own battle to fight, which no other can fight for him. But, if we conquer, it is better for us to have fought a hard fight, than to have been without one; our struggles become our possessions, crowning us with glory. Our subject becomes--the gain of the Christian conqueror.
I. Its nature. More than conquerors. But at the outset we must guard against a perversion of the truth. It is not true to say that by every struggle a man becomes better than if he had had no struggle, for if he allow himself consciously to slide into sin and then afterwards resist it, he is not nobler for that resistance than if he had not sinned at all. It has been said that a mans sins are aids to progress, because by falling under temptation and then overcoming it he is stronger than if he had never fallen. We are told that young men must be young men; that by a few outbursts of wild immoral life at first, they give vent to the fierce impulses of evil--which must come forth--and then settle down into a calmer and stronger manhood. Now, every form of that doctrine which makes sin a culture is false, and utterly different from Pauls assertion. Every temptation that conquers us blinds that fine spiritual preception by which we distinguish the right from the wrong. Every sin leaves a ghastly scar on the immortal soul that impedes it from soaring upwards to God. Paul is speaking of temptations resisted; and he affirms that he who conquers thus is greater than if he had never been tried. Let us proceed now to see how this is so--Through Him that loved us.
1. Every conquered temptation deepens our love to Christ, and thus we are more than conquerors. We come here on the track of that great law, that the trial of principle is its true strengthening. Just as the virtue that stands temptation becomes stronger than the frail thing that has never been tested, so the love of Christ ripens to its manhood through temptations, and therefore our temptations become our possessions, and we are more than conquerors … . But to show this clearly, note that all great emotions render impediments aids to their own growth. Passion catches fire by antagonisms. Men speak of the power of circumstances to hinder a Christian life; of course they have a power, but it is none the less true that a strong love makes the most adverse circumstances the grandest aid to its own progress. Thus, the man of passionate temperament wrestles down the fiery impulse of a great passion, and when the battle-storm is over, he finds in his heart a deep, calm love, which renders the next conquest easier--therefore he is more than conqueror. The lonely student in his chamber fights through the midnight hours with a subtle doubt which is driving him to unbelief, but when the victory is won, his faith is all the deeper for the struggle, and that struggle is henceforth a possession, rendering him more than conqueror.
2. The love of Christ to us is a pledge that our conquests will become our gains. Paul evidently had this thought when he said, Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, etc. The living Christ is watching the temptation, and He will take care that its issue is a greater glory than that which could have come from a life of perpetual repose. We may see, in fact, how this is so. Temptations enlarge our capacity of sympathy with the Saviour. In conflict, under slander, in sorrow, we get nearer to the Christ of the wilderness, the judgment-hall, and the garden; and that deeper sympathy is its own great reward God will open hereafter the marvellous book of the human soul, and show how each struggle left its eternal inscription of glory there.
II. Its attainment. How shall we know that we are becoming more than conquerors? When the love of Christ is--
1. The strongest power in life.
2. A progressive power. (E. L. Hull, B.A.)
The Christian conquest
We begin with a Christians success. First, to speak of the positive supposition, We are conquerors. But whom or what is a Christian conqueror of? First, he is a conqueror even of God Himself. First, from the reflection of their graces, and that loveliness which is put upon their purposes. Secondly, the children of God they do conquer Him by the efficacy of their prayers. Prayer, it is wonderful victorious. This victory in prevailing with God, it is the ground and foundation of all other victories besides. They which can conquer Him, they may conquer everything else. Secondly, they are their own conquerors; they conquer and overcome themselves. He that cannot conquer his affections will never conquer his afflictions; whereas he that can do that, he will find these by little and little yielding unto him. Take a carnal man, and he is a captive to every temptation: he is like a city without wails, which is easily taken; but a good Christian he is otherwise affected. But thirdly (which is most agreeable to the scope of the text), in regard of all their enemies. First, the children of God are conquerors over their personal enemies; and in particular evil men, they have a great deal the better of them. First, a Christian conquers his enemies by doing of that which is good. Secondly, by suffering of that which is evil; a Christian conquers thus also. Thus the martyrs in ancient times overcame their very tormentors by their patience and constancy. A Christian, he is above all the evils which in this world are incident unto him; and that in three respects especially. First, by prevention of them. Secondly, by cheerfulness under them. And thirdly, by profiting by them. And so much may suffice to have spoken of the success of a Christian, as it is here laid down in the first notion and proposal of it, namely, in its positive supposition, and that is, We are conquerors. The second is in its comparative amplification, we are so, and somewhat besides--we are conquerors, yea, more than conquerors. It is a very emphatical word, and such as our English language does not easily reach to--over-overcome. First, as to the thing itself, being Christians, we are more than conquerors here, and that again in two particulars. First, as to the disabling of our enemies. A man may conquer his enemy for the present, but yet he may recover again. All the enemies of a Christian shall be at last perfectly subdued unto him, and so as they shall not be able any more to rise up against him. Secondly, We are more than conquerors, so far forth as we hereby benefit ourselves. A Christian does not only destroy his enemy, but he does likewise divide the spoil. Now secondly, are we so likewise as to the manners of the victory, and that in sundry circumstances in which it may be made good unto us. First, we do more than conquer, because we conquer with a little strength. They conquer many times by very weak and feeble means. It is all one with God to conquer by many or few. Secondly, they do more than conquer, because they conquer in a little time. Thirdly, they do more than conquer, because they conquer with a little loss. Fourthly, they do more than conquer, because they conquer where they do not fight. Stand still, says Moses to the Israelites, and ye shall see the salvation of the Lord. Lastly, Gods servants do more than conquer, because they conquer when they are conquered themselves. The consideration of this point may be thus far useful to us, namely, as to show us the dignity and excellency of all true Christians and believers. The world, for the most part, looks upon Gods children as a contemptible generation, as those who of all others are the most easily conquered and overcome. The second is the account or ground of this success unto him, that is laid down in these words, Through Him that loved us. First, to take notice of his affection, in his great care for the shunning of pride and ostentation, and vainglory in himself, lie had said in the words before of himself, and the rest of believers, That in all these things we are more than conquerors. This was a big and great word, and it might seem to carry a price of too much self-confidence in it. Now, therefore, does he here seasonably correct it, and qualify it, Through Him that loved us. So, likewise, Php_4:13, a place much like to this at present, there he says, He can do all things. He can want and abound, and everything; well, but how? Through Christ that strengthens me. Still he is careful of this, not to give way to a spirit of presumption. First, it is a thing which is easy, if men do not the better look to themselves. But then secondly, it is again very dangerous, and it is that which the children of God smart for, where they are guilty of it. Pride and presumption in assurance is the next way to lose assurance. Now in the next place we may take notice of his expression, in the substance of the words themselves, Through Him that loved us. Through Him that loved us! Who is that? namely, Jesus Christ. And there are two things again which are here considerable of us. First, for the description of Christ. It is by this periphrasis, of Him that loved us, as that indeed whereby He is best of all known unto us; and as if there were none that loved us but He alone. Who loved me, and gave Himself for me (Gal_2:20). Who loved us and washed us in His blood (Rev_1:5). Christ loved His Church and gave Himself for it, etc. (Eph_5:25). This love of Christ unto us, it was manifested in sundry particulars; that wherein it first showed and discovered itself unto us, was in the business of His incarnation, and taking of our nature upon Him. Especially if we shall further consider upon what terms, and in what circumstances He took it. And so the acts of His mediatorship, which were consequent and dependent hereupon; they were the expressions of the same love. There are two reasons especially why he makes use of this expression in the text, rather than of any other besides. First, it was most comprehensive; when he said, He that loved us, he said in effect everything else. He that was born for us, that died for us, that redeemed us, that saved us; all is comprehended in Him that loved us, because that all these things were the effects of His love. Secondly, as it was the most comprehensive expression, it was also the most proper expression, and pertinent to the business in hand; for he had made mention before of afflictions and persecutions, and such things as those as unable to separate believers from the love of Christ. The second is the account, or cause, of victory to a Christian, and that is through the help of this Person thus described. Now there are three ways especially whereby Christ does accomplish this victory for us, and help us to be partakers of it. First, I say, in that the Spirit of Christ works the graces and abilities themselves. There are divers graces of this nature; as to instance in one or two of them. First, the grace of faith, that is a conquering grace (1Jn_5:4). Secondly, another grace is self-denial; that is another victorious accomplishment. The best way for any man to get victory over his afflictions, is by a restrained affection to his comforts. Thirdly, the grace of humility. As there is nothing which is nearer ruin than pride, so there is nothing which is nearer victory than humility. God Himself resists the proud, pitches battle against them; but He gives grace to the humble, and success with it. Lastly, the grace of patience. This grapples with the greatest evils. Now further, He does also upon occasion actuate those graces in us; and thus He helps us to conquer by His power. Secondly, as by His Spirit, so by His example (1Pe_2:21). Thirdly, by His Word. In this Christ goes forth conquering and to conquer. It is His chariot of triumph (2Co_2:14). Ye are strong, and the Word of God abides in you (1Jn_2:14). One thing more, and so I have done: Through Him that loved us. These words may be taken not only simply, but reflexively, and by way of reduplication; as intimating unto us whence it is that Christ does enable us to be such conquerors, and that is from His unspeakable love. It is from Him that loved us; and from Him so far forth as He loved us. When it is said here from His love; this does not exclude His power, but supposes, and it takes it in; therefore as in this place it is said, Through Christ that loves us. So again in another place it is said, Through Christ that strengthens us; because indeed they are both concomitant. There is nothing whatsoever we enjoy, if we be true believers, but we enjoy it as a fruit of Christs love. It is from the love of Christ that He afflicts us, and it is from the love of Christ also that He strengthens us and enables us to endure affliction. It is not from common providence, but from special favour; it is not from the power of nature, but from the privileges and prerogatives of grace. (Thomas Horton, D.D.)
Christian heroes
Conquerors, although victorious, are often all but defeated. The battle of Waterloo was won by a hairs breadth. Napoleon said, on the morning of the day of Waterloo, We have ninety out of a hundred chances. The conquering army had nothing to spare. The believer in Christ has many foes and fiercer to war against, but he has no doubt as to the result; and when the battle is over he has a surplus of force by which he could conquer still worse and more numerous enemies. He is more than a conqueror. God is with him, and he cannot fail. His last enemy is death, to which, as he looks it in the face, he triumphantly exclaims, O death, where is thy sting? Thanks be unto God which giveth me the victory!
Through trials to victory:--When Garibaldi was thrown into prison he said, Let fifty Garibaldis be thrown into prison, but let Rome be free. This spirit set Italy on fire. When he went before a crowd of young men to appeal for recruits, they asked what he had to offer as inducements. The old man replied, Poverty, hardship, battles, wounds, and--victory. They caught his enthusiasm, threw their hats into the air, and enlisted on the spot.
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
B. W. Johnson 1891 · Public Domain On vv35–39 35. Who shall separate us from the love of…
35. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Can anything? Can the sufferings of the Christian calling in a time of persecution, such as the prophet described and the early Christians suffered?
B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.
William B. Godbey 1900 · Public Domain On vv35–38 35. “Who shall separate us from the love of…
35. “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or difficulty, or persecution, or famine, or peril, or sword?” The answer is clearly in the negative, as two hundred millions of martyrs singing their death song in the fire have abundantly attested.
William B. Godbey, Commentary on the New Testament (1896–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Alexander MacLaren 1905 · Public Domain On vv37–38
Romans
MORE THAN CONQUERORS
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Rom 8:37.
In order to understand and feel the full force of this triumphant saying of the Apostle, we must observe that it is a negative answer to the preceding questions, ‘Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?’ A heterogeneous mass the Apostle here brigades together as an antagonistic army. They are alike in nothing except that they are all evils. There is no attempt at an exhaustive enumeration, or at classification. He clashes down, as it were, a miscellaneous mass of evil things, and then triumphs over them, and all the genus to which they belong, as being utterly impotent to drag men away from Jesus Christ. To ask the question is to answer it, but the form of the answer is worth notice. Instead of directly replying, ‘No! no such powerless things as these can separate us from the love of Christ,’ he says, ‘No! In all these things, whilst weltering amongst them, whilst ringed round about by them, as by encircling enemies, “we are more than conquerors.”‘ Thereby, he suggests that there is something needing to be done by us, in order that the foes may not exercise their natural effect. And so, taking the words of my text in connection with that to which they are an answer, we have three things-the impotent enemies of love; the abundant victory of love; ‘We are more than conquerors’; and the love that makes us victorious. Let us look then at these three things briefly.
I. First of all, the impotent enemies of love.
There is contempt in the careless massing together of the foes which the Apostle enumerates. He begins with the widest word that covers everything-’affliction.’ Then he specifies various forms of it-’distress,’ straitening, as the word might be rendered, then he comes to evils inflicted for Christ’s sake by hostile men-’persecution,’ then he names purely physical evils, ‘hunger’ and ‘nakedness,’ then he harks back again to man’s antagonism, ‘peril,’ and ‘sword.’ And thus carelessly, and without an effort at logical order, he throws together, as specimens of their class, these salient points, as it were, and crests of the great sea, whose billows threaten to roll over us; and he laughs at them all, as impotent and nought, when compared with the love of Christ, which shields us from them all.
Now it must be noticed that here, in his triumphant question, the Apostle means not our love to Christ but His to us; and not even our sense of that love, but the fact itself. And his question is just this:-Is there any evil in the world that can make Christ stop loving a man that cleaves to Him? And, as I said, to ask the question is to answer it. The two things belong to two different regions. They have nothing in common. The one moves amongst the low levels of earth; the other dwells up amidst the abysses of eternity, and to suppose that anything that assails and afflicts us here has any effect in making that great heart cease to love us is to fancy that the mists can quench the sunlight, is to suppose that that which lies down low in the earth can rise to poison and to darken the heavens.
There is no need, in order to rise to the full height of the Christian contempt for calamity, to deny any of its terrible power. These things can separate us from much. They can separate us from joy, from hope, from almost all that makes life desirable. They can strip us to the very quick, but the quick they cannot touch. The frost comes and kills the flowers, browns the leaves, cuts off the stems, binds the sweet music of the flowing rivers in silent chains, casts mists and darkness over the face of the solitary grey world, but it does not touch the life that is in the root.
And so all these outward sorrows that have power over the whole of the outward life, and can slay joy and all but stifle hope, and can ban men into irrevocable darkness and unalleviated solitude, they do not touch in the smallest degree the secret bond that binds the heart to Jesus, nor in any measure affect the flow of His love to us. Therefore we may front them and smile at them and say:
‘Do as thou wilt, devouring time,
With this wide world, and all its fading sweets’;
‘my flesh and my heart faileth, but God is the strength of my heart, and my portion for ever.’
You need not be very much afraid of anything being taken from you as long as Christ is left you. You will not be altogether hopeless so long as Christ, who is our hope, still speaks His faithful promises to you, nor will the world be lonely and dark to them who feel that they are lapt in the sweet and all-pervading consciousness of the changeless love of the heart of Christ. ‘Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution?’-in any of these things, ‘we are more than conquerors through Him that loved us.’ Brethren, that is the Christian way of looking at all externals, not only at the dark and the sorrowful, but at the bright and the gladsome. If the withdrawal of external blessings does not touch the central sanctities and sweetness of a life in communion with Jesus, the bestowal of external blessedness does not much brighten or gladden it. We can face the withdrawal of them all, we need not covet the possession of them all, for we have all in Christ; and the world without His love contributes less to our blessedness and our peace than the absence of all its joys with His love does. So let us feel that earth, in its givings and in its withholdings, is equally impotent to touch the one thing that we need, the conscious possession of the love of Christ.
All these foes, as I have said, have no power over the fact of Christ’s love to us, but they have power, and a very terrible power, over our consciousness of that love; and we may so kick against the pricks as to lose, in the pain of our sorrows, the assurance of His presence, or be so fascinated by the false and vulgar sweetnesses and promises of the world as, in the eagerness of our chase after them, to lose our sense of the all-sufficing certitude of His love. Tribulation does not strip us of His love, but tribulation may so darken our perceptions that we cannot see the sun. Joys need not rob us of His heart, but joys may so fill ours, as that there shall be no longing for His presence within us. Therefore let us not exaggerate the impotence of these foes, but feel that there are real dangers, as in the sorrows so in the blessings of our outward life, and that the evil to be dreaded is that outward things, whether in their bright or in their dark aspects, may come between us and the home of our hearts, the love of the loving Christ.
II. So then, note next, the abundant victory of love.
Mark how the Apostle, in his lofty and enthusiastic way, is not content here with simply saying that he and his fellows conquer. It would be a poor thing, he seems to think, if the balance barely inclined to our side, if the victory were but just won by a hair’s breadth and triumph were snatched, as it were, out of the very jaws of defeat. There must be something more than that to correspond to the power of the victorious Christ that is in us. And so, he says, we very abundantly conquer; we not only hinder these things which he has been enumerating from doing that which it is their aim apparently to do, but we actually convert them into helpers or allies. The ‘more than conquerors’ seems to mean, if there is any definite idea to be attached to it, the conversion of the enemy conquered into a friend and a helper. The American Indians had a superstition that every foe tomahawked sent fresh strength into the warrior’s arm. And so all afflictions and trials rightly borne, and therefore overcome, make a man stronger, and bring him nearer to Jesus Christ.
Note then, further, that not only is this victory more than bare victory, being the conversion of the enemy into allies, but that it is a victory which is won even whilst we are in the midst of the strife. It is not that we shall be conquerors in some far-off heaven, when the noise of battle has ceased and they hang the trumpet in the hall, but it is here now, in the hand-to-hand and foot-to-foot death-grapple that we do overcome. No ultimate victory, in some far-off and blessed heaven, will be ours unless moment by moment, here, to-day,’ we are more than conquerors through Him that loved us.’
So, then, about this abundant victory there are these things to say:-You conquer the world only, then, when you make it contribute to your conscious possession of the love of Christ. That is the real victory, the only real victory in life. Men talk about overcoming here on earth, and they mean thereby the accomplishment of their designs. A man has ‘victory,’ as it is phrased, in the world’s strife, when he secures for himself the world’s goods at which he has aimed, but that is not the Christian idea of the conquest of calamity. Everything that makes me feel more thrillingly in my inmost heart the verity and the sweetness of the love of Jesus Christ as my very own, is conquered by me and compelled to subserve my highest good, and everything which slips a film between me and Him, which obscures the light of His face to me, which makes me less desirous of, and less sure of, and less happy in, and less satisfied with, His love, is an enemy that has conquered me. And all these evils as the world calls them, and as our bleeding hearts have often felt them to be, are converted into allies and friends when they drive us to Christ, and keep us close to Him, in the conscious possession of His sweet and changeless love. That is the victory, and the only victory. Has the world helped me to lay hold of Christ? Then I have conquered it. Has the world loosened my grasp upon Him? Then it has conquered me.
Note then, further, that this abundant victory depends on how we deal with the changes of our outward lives, our sorrows or our joys. There is nothing, per se, salutary in affliction, there is nothing, per se, antagonistic to Christian faith in it either. No man is made better by his sorrows, no man need be made worse by them. That depends upon how we take the things which come storming against us. The set of your sails, and the firmness of your grasp upon the tiller, determine whether the wind shall carry you to the haven or shall blow you out, a wandering waif, upon a shoreless and melancholy sea. There are some of you that have been blown away from your moorings by sorrow. There are some professing Christians who have been hindered in their work, and had their peace and their faith shattered all but irrevocably, because they have not accepted, in the spirit in which they were sent, the trials that have come for their good. The worst of all afflictions is a wasted affliction, and they are all wasted unless they teach us more of the reality and the blessedness of the love of Jesus Christ.
III. Lastly, notice the love which makes us conquerors.
The Apostle, with a wonderful instinctive sense of fitness, names Christ here by a name congruous to the thoughts which occupy his mind, when he speaks of Him that loved us. His question has been, Can anything separate us from the love of Christ? And his answer is, So far from that being the case, that very love, by occasion of sorrows and afflictions, tightens its grasp upon us, and, by the communication of itself to us, makes us more than conquerors. This great love of Jesus Christ, from which nothing can separate us, will use the very things that seem to threaten our separation as a means of coming nearer to us in its depth and in its preciousness.
The Apostle says ‘Him that loved us,’ and the words in the original distinctly point to some one fact as being the great instance of love. That is to say they point to His death. And so we may say Christ’s love helps us to conquer because in His death He interprets for us all possible sorrows. If it be true that love to each of us nailed Him there, then nothing that can come to us but must be a love-token, and a fruit of that same love. The Cross is the key to all tribulation, and shows it to be a token and an instrument of an unchanging love.
Further, that great love of Christ helps us to conquer, because in His sufferings and death He becomes the Companion of all the weary. The rough, dark, lonely road changes its look when we see His footprints there, not without specks of blood in them, where the thorns tore His feet. We conquer our afflictions if we recognise that ‘in all our afflictions He was afflicted,’ and that Himself has drunk to its bitterest dregs the cup which He commends to our lips. He has left a kiss upon its margin, and we need not shrink when He holds it out to us and says ‘Drink ye all of it.’ That one thought of the companionship of the Christ in our sorrows makes us more than conquerors.
And lastly, this dying Lover of our souls communicates to us all, if we will, the strength whereby we may coerce all outward things into being helps to the fuller participation of His perfect love. Our sorrows and all the other distracting externals do seek to drag us away from Him. Is all that happens in counteraction to that pull of the world, that we tighten our grasp upon Him, and will not let Him go; as some poor wretch might the horns of the altar that did not respond to his grasp? Nay what we lay hold of is no dead thing, but a living hand, and it grasps us more tightly than we can ever grasp it. So because He holds us, and not because we hold Him, we shall not be dragged away, by anything outside of our own weak and wavering souls, and all these embattled foes may come against us, they may shear off everything else, they cannot sever Christ from us unless we ourselves throw Him away. ‘In this thou shalt conquer.’ ‘They overcame by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of His testimony.’
Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. W. McGarvey 1914 · Public Domain On vv35–39 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?…
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or anguish, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? [The thought of Rom_8:28 ; which has not been out of the apostle's mind since he introduced it, here comes once more squarely to the front. Shall any of the hardships of our present life so work evil as to cause Christ to change his present feeling toward us, or his future purpose to justify us? Can we who know his love ask such a question? Can anything in the whole catalogue of hardships work such results? Though in our day the sufferings may vary somewhat from the items given by the apostle, yet they raise the same doubts--produce in us the same effects. It is natural to man to look upon the sufferings of the Christian life as a contradiction to the scheme of grace. According to our earthly conceptions, a journey which is to end in glorification should continually rise toward it, so that pleasures, joys, honors, etc., should increase daily. When, instead of such a program, we meet with tribulation, anguish, nakedness, etc., it looks to us as if God were leading us the wrong way--the way that would end in degradation and death, rather than glorification and life. The answer to such thoughts is found in this argument of the apostle. God makes any road lead to good and glorification, and especially those roads which seem to run in the opposite direction; so that we may regard those things which appear to argue his hatred and neglect as, on the contrary, the strongest evidences of his love and care. And this, adds the apostle, is no new truth, for it has been the experience of God's people in the past, as the Scripture testifies.]
J. W. McGarvey (with Philip Y. Pendleton), Commentaries on the New Testament (The Fourfold Gospel, 1914; Acts; and the epistles) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
C. I. Scofield 1917 · Public Domain On vv38–39 (See Scofield "Heb 1:4").
angels
(See Scofield "Heb 1:4").
The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv35, 37 Who will separate us from the love of Christ?
Who will separate us from the love of Christ?
Paul uses this question to teach that nothing can separate us from the love of Christ. AT: "No one will ever separate us from the love of Christ!" or "Nothing will ever separate us from the love of Christ!" (See: Rhetorical Question)
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Tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or hunger, or nakedness, or danger, or sword?
The words "shall separate us from the love of Christ" are understood from the previous question. AT: "Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or hunger, or nakedness, or danger, or sword separate us from the love of Christ?"(See: Ellipsis)
Tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or hunger, or nakedness, or danger, or sword?
Paul uses this question to emphasize that even these things cannot separate us from the love of Christ. AT: "Even tribulation, distress, persecution, hunger, nakedness, danger, and sword cannot separate us from the love of Christ." (See: Rhetorical Question)
Tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or hunger, or nakedness, or danger, or sword?
The abstract nouns can be expressed with verb phrases. Here "sword" is a metonym that represents being killed violently. AT: "Even if people cause us trouble, hurt us, take away our clothes and food, or kill us, they cannot separate us from the love of Christ." (See: Abstract Nouns and Metonymy)
Tribulation, or distress
These words both mean the same thing. (See: Doublet)
For your benefit
Here "your" is singular and refers to God. AT: "For you" (See: Forms of You)
we are killed all day long
Here "we" refers to the one who wrote this part of Scripture, but not his audience, who was God. The phrase "all day long" is an exaggeration to emphasize how much danger they are in. Paul uses this part of Scripture to show that all who belong to God should expect difficult times. This can be translated in an active form. AT: "our enemies continually seek to kill us" (See: Inclusive "We" and Hyperbole and Generalization and Active or Passive)
We were considered as sheep for the slaughter
Here Paul compares to livestock those whom people kill because they are loyal to God. You can translate this in an active form. AT: "Our lives have no more value to them than the sheep they kill" (See: Simile and Active or Passive)
translationWords
love
Christ
tribulation
persecute
sword
written
ewe
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.